Stupid Question, but…

[Mylenium]

[collegekid05] “Stupid question, but how do you fly a solid over top of or behind text in AE and have that text’s color change based on the position of the solid (so if it’s black text, when a black solid motions in behind it, the text text turns white wherever the black solid layer is gliding through)? Is it a keying filter or something else? I figure it must be fairly simple; I just have never had the need to do anything like this before.”

Blend modes or colored solids with your object and text used as mattes or effects like Fill and Tint.

[collegekid05] “One other quicky…I am not a 3d artist, but if I want to create 3d tube like elements in my designs that have metalic properties where they fly around and bend on camera etc. is there a particular program or plugin any of you like? I would like to be able to have a metal object fly in and weave around objects on the screen, just not sure how to accomplish it (self-taught w/AE) I use stroke etc. but that doesn’t have the 3d properties of a ribbon or tube that I am looking for.”

I don’t know any plugin that can do that natively in AE, but most 3D programs can do that kind of animated extrusions/ lofts. I think – once more – that Cinema4D is the motion graphics artist’s best friend even in the basic version without any modules. Download the 30 day trial and use it in your project and then decide if it’s the right tool for you.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Filip Vandueren]

[collegekid05] “Stupid question, but how do you fly a solid over top of or behind text in AE and have that text’s color change based on the position of the solid (so if it’s black text, when a black solid motions in behind it, the text text turns white wherever the black solid layer is gliding through)? Is it a keying filter or something else? I figure it must be fairly simple; I just have never had the need to do anything like this before. “

Try this:

a white solid as big as your comp,
black text on top of that,
then use another white solid that you move around and give it the “difference”-transfer mode.

[Chris Smith]

1. Yeah, I would give the text the difference or exclusion transfer mode so that it is always different from your BG.

2. Well to do it in AE, you could create a curvy surface in 3D Invig and map growing stripes to it’s surface so it looks like metallic ribbons that flow along curvy space. But they won’t be tube like. You could use 3D stroke, but it won’t really show dimension (tube geometry) or metallic properties.

My fav is in C4D to create a spline for the full path and a small circle (for tubes) or thin square (for ribbons) and drop these into a Sweep Nurbs. Then animate the ‘grow’ parameter so that the tube or ribbon grows along the path. Then adjust the material properties to your liking.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com