Animating text in 3D

[Mike Clasby]

Here are three ways for 3D Text in ae:

1) Invigorator. Here’s a link from the “Look Here First” thread (above):

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=881579

2) Quick and Dirty. Not that dirty really. For a quickie that looks fine unless you linger side on, just add this expression to a text layer (make it 3D):

position+[0,0,(index-1)*1]

Now duplicate the layer as many times as you want it to be thick (the expression tells the layer to be offset 1 pixel in the z direction for each layer it’s down in the layer stack). If you want to move the letters as a unit, parent all to the first text layer, then rotate/move it, or precompose the text layers.

You can change the color of the front by changing the Color of the text in the Character Palette ( and the back too) You can even bevel the front and back with Perspective>Bevel Alpha (quite nice, really)

Note: You may get a warning for certain plugins to use AE’s Advance 3D Rendering, so go Composition>Comp Settings>Advanced>Render Plug-in: Advanced 3D.

The same principal is used in this tut, without the expression (he uses a 3 pixel separation), but with nice use of precomposing to make changing the text easy, and a control null to animate the text enmass:

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/woodall_traylor/3dtypetut2/index.html

3) Also you can use Shatter:

Make your text, duplicate it, add a Black Solid, arrange as below:

Text
Text
Black Solid

Now Select and precompose the bottom two layers (move all attributes), this precomp will be as a custom Shatter map.

Add Effect>SimulatePattern: Custom
Custom Shatter Map: Precomp
Extrusion Map: This controls how deep the letters are

A tut for a logo extrusion here:

https://www.creativecow.net/articles/kahlenberg_roland/3d_logo_extrude/index.html
Force 1>
Strength: 0 (this keeps the letters from being blown away)
Physics>Gravity: 0 (keeps the letters from succumbing to gravity)

Textures… You can control the Front, Side and Back Modes with precomped layer (a red solid precomped choose, Side Mode:Layer, Side Layer Red Solid Precomp.

Camera System: Comp Camera

Add a Camera to the Comp, Layer>New Camera (C toggles the Camera Orbit Tool).

For a walk through, click on Roland R. Kahlenberg

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi There,

yikesmikes gave you a bunch of good info for different ways to create 3D looking text.
But as far as having the z-space parameter, it should show up with you click the 3D layer switch? You might want to try again with a different layer or project, to see if it continues.
Depending on how you are using your composition, moving the Comp Camera (as mentioned by mike) will usually yield better results than just moving the layers.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Tornike Gelashvili]

Thanks a lot. Really nice tutorial. Thank you for your time.

But this was not what I actually needed. I was talking about Text layer animation with animator (when you pull down the text layer properties, there is “Animator:” and you can animate all kinds of transform controls, and look (bluriness, tracking, character offset…).

The problem that I was facing, is that Position animator has only X and Y even when layer is set to 3D.
I thought it would be really nice, if I could make text characters fly in one by one (or randomly) from front (plus animating opacity) and moving camera. The problem is that there is no Z for position (nor for rotation).

I can’t understand why?.. 🙁

[Cal Johnson]

I think I know exactly what you mean, having the text fly in as if they were behind the camera, coming in front, so each letter comes in really large and then shrinks into postion by moving in Z space. The odd thing is that Todd is quite right. You should just be able to click the 3D switch on for the layer, and then press “P” to open up the position property, and see values for x, y, and z. Instead of opening the Animator settings, have you just tried turning on the 3D layer and then looking only at the Postion property? It should work.

If you get that figured out, a couple of tips for the look you’re going for would be to use motion blur (remember you can set the shutter phase all the way up to 720 if you want a lot of blur), and I wouldn’t worry to much about animating the camera as well, at least not while the text is flying in. Also, it helps to work backwards, starting with the characters in their final resting postion, and then go back to the start and move their postions in Z space. You may want to vary their x values as well to make it seem like they are coming from different angles.

Good luck!

[Jon Agnew]

Thanks to all of you for your responses. I’m currently trying out those solutions to see which works best for me. God bless Creative Cow.