[Mike Clasby]

What version of AE are you on? Are ther any cameras?

In the comp setting (Ctrl K) and clicking the “Advanced” tab, is “Rendering Plug In” set to “Advanced 3D”, if not the older “Standard 3D” is a little wonky.

Otherwise Ram preview should be what you get.

[Mike Clasby]

1) Zaxwerk’s 3D Warp is the newest 3D bender in AE, but I don’t know hoe more than one layer does, interaction-wise. I think there might be a problem is there’s more than one page, at least there was when it first came out.

https://www.zaxwerks.com/3dwarps/index.shtml

2) Serge has a great AE 3D Book, here:

https://www.nyc-visual.com/3D_Book_M.html

Click “Project” to download the aep. In the comp named “Composited” the layer “Page_Middle” gets a little warp with the effect Bezier Warp, at about 8 seconds into the animation as the book is closing.

This is a very nifty project.

[Mike Clasby]

Do you know the name of the text preset? It looks like it has several sliders for variables for the expression but I con/t locate it to see if I can hack it?

[Mike Clasby]

You might also check out Simulate>CC Ball Action (CC Filter a separate install off the disk), animate the scatter fro 0 to say 150 over a few frames, grid at 1 ball size 75, tweak to taste.

Then chase that with Scatter or CC Scatterize.

Very quick. But Shatter is the closed to an explosion.

[Mike Clasby]

I can’t use Jerzy’s installer because I’m back in the prehistoric 6.5, but here is a link to a similar question, I think part 2 is the answer to what you want.

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/917746

The only difference I see is that your example is soooo regular in it’s progression, but the setup described in part 2 of the link is not so regular. You get the same back shuffle, but it’s in a little more spurts, you’ll see what I mean.

Is did make a preset form it but no place to upload to, but I can email it, that way it takes, Converting the music file to audiokeyframes, then running the preset to get three sliders and the expression on time remapping. Also with the sliders if you tweak the settings you should get close to what you want.

I need to explore a little math rounding in the expression to see if that will make it more regular.

[Mike Clasby]

So you’re trying to reveal text, I think I’ve got it. This is close, maybe not exactly what you want, but it reveals the text like a signature.

Type your text

Layer>Create Outlines

M reveals the masks in the new outlines layer.

Copy the masks

Paste them into the original text layer.

Select all the masks and change the mode to None.

Drag all the masks, still all selected, over to be on top of the original text.

Add Stroke,

Check “All Masks” and “Stroke Sequentially”, Paint Style to “Reveal Original Image”.
Increase the “Brush Size” to 15 to 30, this all depends on the font, size of the font.

Then animate the “End” from zero to 100 over time with keyframes.

Adjust the Brush Size so you get a nice reveal, to much or too little won’t look right.

Note: You can even change the path or direction of the fill by selecting the mask you think involved in that stage of the fill, then seeing where the “first vertex” is, the bigger square of the vertices, then selecting a vertice on the same mask in another spot on the mask, then right-clicking and choose “Set First Vertex”, now it will fill or stroke from that point first.

[Mike Clasby]

Here is where a picture is woth a thousand words.

Can you post a pic of before and after, especially the final “spline”. And is there a spline end product for each letter, word, or line of text?

[Mike Clasby]

Definately a Flash thing. Here’s how:

https://www.dreamincode.net/code/snippet137.htm

Then publish a swf and you should be good to go.

[Mike Clasby]

If you want the text to have the curvature of the ring, go with the first two suggestions. But if you want flat text (or any regular flat layers really), there’s a script to automate all, takes a few minutes (if you’ve done it before).

First you need to download the script before you open AE.

1) Get script

Here’s the script, “createCylinder”, distributes the selected layers around a cylindrical shape (using expressions):

https://www.nabscripts.com/Downloads/downloads_en_1.php?id=6

Choose the createCylinder, I think the page opens with createCube, you want the one just below that.

Download the .zip file, then unzip it, then copy the .jsx to your Scripts Folder (Programs>Adobe>AfterEffects>Support>Scripts).

2) Create you four text layers with the text Tool.

Note text has it’s anchor point in the lower left corner of the layer, so it will be positioned and scale from there. To get it to scale from the middle, move the anchor point to the middle of the text with the Pan Behind Tool (in the Tools Palette, looks like a little game sight, it’s nest to the right of the Zoom Tool).
Stack the text layers in front of each other, all in the middle of the screen.

3) Create Cylinder for Carousel with a script.

Then startup AE, and Select all four of the text layers you made above (it will make them 3D for you, but it’s OK if they’re already 3D). Then click File>Run Script>choose “createCylinder” (you might have to navigate to the Presets Folder). The first parameter corresponds to the number of layers per level, so type in 4 for your example. If you have a smaller number here than the number of layer you apply the script to, they’ll start to stack up above, so 4 is the number you want. The second is the Radius (rayon, French) of the cylinder. I made that 200 for a 200 pixel radius. You can change these numbers later if you mess up, there are sliders on the Null to change as needed.

Now click Create (Creer).

It makes the layers 3D, arranging them in a cylinder, parented to a control layer (Null). Rotate or change position with keyframes of the Null to animate the cylinder.

Note: You can get all his Scripts (29 so far) with the zip in the paragraph above on that same page.

4) Opacity Fade with distance from Camera.

First you need to add a camera, or the expression will break, make sure your at the beginning of the timeline when you add the camera. Layer, new Camera, I chose the default 50mm camera.

This expression from Dan Ebberts on Opacity should do the trick you asked for. To apply the expression, Copy the expression below, Alt-Click the Opacity stopwatch, Paste. Here’s the expression:

C = thisComp.activeCamera;
startFade = 700;
endFade = 1200;
d = length(toWorld(anchorPoint),C.toWorld([0,0,0]));
linear(d,startFade,endFade,100,0)

Change the “startFade = 700” and “endFade = 1200” as needed. The way it’s setup now, with 700 and 1200, it will go from 100% opacity to 24% opacity as the layers revolve if the radius of the carousel is 200 pixels. So if you used the script above and set the radius to 200 then your revolving fade should be good.

To apply to many layers at once, do the above to one, then select the expression (select the Opacity) then Edit>Copy Expression Only, then select as many other layers as you want the expression on (the other three text layers), and then Paste.

Note: as the layers fade, you can see thru them, if you don’t want them but just want them to get dim, but opaque, Dan has an expression for that, it needs a light and goes on the Material Options, “Diffuse” and “Specular”, here:

https://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/falloff.html

5) Size Falloff

You might not need to do anything to scale, as setup above, with a radius of 200, and the 50 mm camera in the default position (about – 812 pixels in Z space) you get the far away layer to be about half as big as the closest layer (well about 60% as big really).

You can change the camera to a 28 mm camera (double click the camera and choose 28mm from the dropdown) and change the radius of the cylinder to 400 pixels (Hit “E” on the keyboard, on the Null reveals the “rayon” slider, change the 200 to 400).

If you want the scale to be more dramatic, say 100 down to 25%, try this hacked expression (hacked from the above opacity expression) for scale (Alt-click the Scale stopwatch for this one):

C = thisComp.activeCamera;
startScale = 700;
endScale = 1200;
minScale = 25; //minimum scale %
maxScale = 100;
d = length(toWorld(anchorPoint),C.toWorld([0,0,0]));
s = linear(d,startScale,endScale,maxScale,minScale);
[s,s,s]

Like I said you might not need the scale expression.

6) Make a Preset

If you think you’ll use this setup again, make a preset by selecting the Opacity and Scale in any one of the layers, then Animation>Save Animation Preset, name it something like “OpacityScaleFadeToCameraDistance” or whatever you want. Then you can apply it to any layer by selecting the layer, and clicking Animation>Apply Animation Preset> and choosing “OpacityScaleFadeToCameraDistance” (You might have to navigate to the folder you saved it in, hopefully the Presets folder).

[Mike Clasby]

What are you applying Advanced Lightning to? If it’s to a video or still layer, check the “Composite On Original” Box near the bottom in the Effects Controls palette (F3).

If it’s to a solid, you should have transparency unless you check that box. Putting it on a Black solid is often handy (box unchecked).