• Adobe After Effects

  Build image from words

  Posted by Patrick Hearn on July 30, 2008 at 2:43 pm

  I’m looking into creating this effect:
  · words fly in from behind camera and stop, all at the same z-depth
  · camera flies back to reveal logo or image (or perhaps even video)
  Basically the image appears to have been made up by text. I don’t want the final image to be ascii art or anything though.

  The problem I’m coming up against when thinking about this is what to do on the pull back of the camera. I’d like it to appear as though the image is still falling into place during the camera move.

  I’ve got a few thoughts on this:
  ·creating a single composition with a decent amount of text falling into place and duplicating it in a master composition
  ·Fading into the main image when i get far enough away that you can’t tell it’s not text

  I think possiblyy my problem is I’m trying to think of a way of actually doing it, rather than faking it.

  Anyway, if anyone has any ideas (perhaps using a particle plugin somehow?) I’d love to hear your input.

  Patrick Hearn replied 17 years, 9 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Thad Ciechanowski

  July 30, 2008 at 6:43 pm

  I’ve done a similar effect to this before.. if you’re doing what I think you want to do.

  Basically create words on different z depths and have a camera fly out from them. You’ll need lots of words.

  Have your logo in “stencil alpha” mode (in 2D, presuming there’s an alpha) and as the camera flys to the right point, have your logo’s scale property follow. This will give the illusion that you’re flying out from the logo made of words.

  Then have your logo fade up normally in place of the “stencil alpha” logo. Be sure to fade out and END the stencil alpha logo or you’ll have problems.

  This will look realy cool, but won’t provide a 3D textured sculpture of the logo. If you want that look you’re going to need to use some displacement maps to define texture at the end of the animation.

  Hope this helps.
• 

  Patrick Hearn

  July 31, 2008 at 9:17 am

  Thanks fro the reply.

  I think I’ve got an idea of what I’ll get from doing this, I’ll give it shot.

  I did have a thought today about it. I tihnk i’ll try to crash zoom out. Often I see effects to move between a very close up shot and a wide shot when it’s clearly impossible to have acheived with real camerawork.

  Not entirly clear in my head exactly how i’m going to acheive it, but I’ve got a few ideas. I’ll post again when I’ve had a go, for posterity.

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