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Activity Forums Adobe After Effects How to add a background color to a text layer?

  • How to add a background color to a text layer?

    Posted by Luke Mcfadden on September 1, 2010 at 5:11 pm

    I’ve seen in several typography videos where text areas appear to have a background. Is there a way to add a background color to a text layer?

    I’ve achieved a similar result by scaling a solid color layer, and parenting it to the text.

    An example would be @0:35 in this video: https://vimeo.com/10271606

    Not sure if that was After Effects or Motion.

    I’ve also seen this affect with typography work where text swings down like a sign, and it has a colored background.

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    John Cuevas replied 15 years, 10 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Luke Mcfadden

    September 1, 2010 at 5:44 pm

    I’m wanting to change the background of the text layer, not the text color itself. I’m on CS5 btw.

  • Tudor “ted” jelescu

    September 1, 2010 at 6:10 pm

    Parent a colored rectangle to text layer, put that under the layer with the word that needs it as background and select track matte inverted- you will get the effect from the example you posted. Of course if you need to put background to one word in a line, you will need to have that word on a separate text layer and if you need to make the background appear and disappear living the word behind, you need to duplicate the text layer with that word and place one under the background layer + change opacity.
    Hope this is clear…

    Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
    Senior Compositor/VFX Artist
    Bucharest, Romania

  • John Cuevas

    September 1, 2010 at 6:10 pm

    Build your text & solid in a precomp. When I do it, I parent the text to the solid, then adjust the anchor point of the solid to the top edge in the center. Change the solid and text to 3d layers and apply this expression to the x rotation of the solid. amp =- 110;
    decay = .9;
    startTime = thisComp.marker.nearestKey(time);
    t = time – startTime;
    amp *Math.sin(t * 2 *Math.PI)/[Math.exp (t *decay)]

    You can adjust the amp and decay to taste. You will need to add a comp marker to use this expression…just the way I did it.

    Johnny Cuevas, Editor
    http://www.thinkck.com

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