Transparent “Glass” 3D Text

[Kevin Camp]

not really… the only thin i can think of is to try and play with the shatter effect and define the shape as a custom layer (say text or logo), remove the forces and gravity (otherwise your text or logo will fly appart and fall off the screen). then play with the depth, camera position, lighting and material options. but i don’t think it will look really glassy.

Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Darby Edelen]

[moldyboot] “not really… the only thin i can think of is to try and play with the shatter effect and define the shape as a custom layer (say text or logo), remove the forces and gravity (otherwise your text or logo will fly appart and fall off the screen). then play with the depth, camera position, lighting and material options. but i don’t think it will look really glassy.”

So I finished writing a rather lengthy response to this and for some reason the page disappeared instead of posting =/

So here’s a concise version:

Create your text. Then duplicate that text and give it a white fill and a black border, use Channel Blur to blur everything but the alpha (so you have a gradient in the text from white at the center to black at the edge). Pre-comp this layer. In your original Comp turn Continously Rasterize on and visibility off for the pre-comped text and parent it to your original text. Create an Adjustment Layer and apply a Displacement Map to it, use the Pre-comped text as the displacement’s source, put this Adjustment Layer below your original text layer. Change your original text layer’s blending mode to overlay (or another mode depending on what you’re happy with) and reduce opacity until you’re satisfied with the result. Everything below the adjustment layer should have a displaced ‘through glass’ look to it.

All that remains is coming up with some cool lighting/reflection effects on the ‘glass’ text. I’ll see what I can come up with, but other suggestions would be awesome =)

[Anonymous]

There is a tutorial on this I just can’t seem to find it.

The Roach
http://www.projectrooster.com

[Darby Edelen]

[wuzelwazel] “All that remains is coming up with some cool lighting/reflection effects on the ‘glass’ text. I’ll see what I can come up with, but other suggestions would be awesome =)”

Here’s an example video of this technique a little more fleshed out, the background fades between simple fractal noise and a city scene just to give you an idea of how the text reacts with different backgrounds…

https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3419163529742265044

I was able to get pretty good lighting by duplicating the source text layer again, applying CC Glass to it and setting the source layer for the effect to the pre-comped text (the same one that’s used for the displacement map), then making this layer grayscale, adjusting the levels with a levels effect (white will be highlights, black won’t show up), changing the layer’s blending mode to add and reducing it’s opacity to around 10%.

This technique requires a source layer of text (for the base color, in my example it’s light blue), a pre-comped version of that text (for the displacement map and glass effects), a duplicated version of the text (for the lighting/highlights using CC Glass) and an adjustment layer with the displacement map effect.

[Kathlyn Lindeboom]

[The Roach] “There is a tutorial on this I just can’t seem to find it.”

Is this the one?
https://www.creativecow.net/articles/james_colin/glass/index.html

Kathlyn Lindeboom
The Mistress of Mmmooooo!

[Darby Edelen]

That tutorial has some good suggestions for adding to the glassy look, I like the gaussian blur suggestion. I’d shy away from using 3D lights for specular highlights (they’ll look kind of flat) if you can develop a good height map for a CC Glass effect.

[Anonymous]

That would be it!

The Roach
http://www.projectrooster.com

[Scott.production]

thanks all for great “glass text” suggestions.

scott.production