Spinning Newspaper into Frame effect

[Mike Clasby]

If it spins off-kilter, you probably need to move the Anchor Point, the point which it rotates around.

Double click the layer (opens a separate window, Footage I think)then you can move the Anchor Point. The Anchor Point is the little circle in the middle of the layer with the cross through it. Moving the Anchor Point means sometimes you have to reposition the layer, as they’re related.

You can also move the Anchor Point in the main Comp Window with the Pan Behind Tool (P), it’s in the Tools Palette.

[Steve Roberts]

Also, make sure that your text is centered (not left- or right- justified) when you create it, if you use the Text tools.

Regarding rotation, you start its rotation at zero, create a keyframe, then at the expected end of the move, you change its rotation to what you want. Maybe six times per second, meaning that for a 2-second move, the rotation value should start at 0 and end at 12x.

If you’re using 3D layers, you would keyframe the layer’s z-position at the start and end of the move to move the title closer to camera.

Make sure motion blur is on for both the layer and the comp. More info on keyframing, motion blur and 3D layers can be found in the Help.

This is very basic, requiring two rotation keyframes, and two z-position keyframes, but you should know that AE uses keyframes and expressions to create motion. It doesn’t provide quick-and-dirty solutions, though once you spend some time with it, you’ll see that some things are very simple. You might want to look into Apple’s Motion if you need something different. Though of course, it is much more limited than AE. And it’s mac-only.

[Filip Vandueren]

If you use very very fast rotation and find that the motion blur is a bit choppy, first try changing it to a 3d layer, if you can still see discrete samples, add a “CC force motion blur” effect and up the samples.