As far as I know there are no free add-ons. VBA is getting pretty old so support my be slowing.
You may still find add-ons to buy but I have never tried them.
What kind of "visual effects" do you want? You can do a lot for example see my examples in MS Access forms below.
In the centre I have a waiting "spinner" which is a motion gif.
Is this kind of thing what you are thinking?
I have found no way of getting away from the square text boxes and comboboxes, but I have (as you can see) on one of the dates when it has focus the border becomes visible with a different color. Just a little bit of eye candy.
For graphis VBA does not really handle the Alpha transparent channel but you can call the Windows API for example to fade windows in and out or to have forms at 50% so that you can read things behind it - (good for people with one screen)
In one of my examples you can see the "Add New......" This is a Form that fades in and behind it is a black form at about 20% Transparent which give you that Vista look.
