Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Jake. This
class will teach you how to create a folding
wave text animation. You don't need any experience working with Adobe
After effects. To learn this effect, you can even download the free trial version and
it will work fine. I'll explain each step we will take to create this animation. You can always write
your questions in discussion
section under any of my classes to get help for me while creating cool effects. I think it's the
best way to learn the software while creating
interesting effects for fun. And to complete this class, our goal is to create this
folding wave text animation. Be happy to see in
my class as also your result after
following all the steps. So let's get started.
2. Creating Base Text: Okay, so let's create this
really nice text animation. So as you can see, I'm using
Adobe to effects 2024, but you can pretty much use
any version of Adoboffx. It will work fine. I'm going to click here on
Standard Layout, so my layout should
be similar to yours. If you cannot see
some of the panels, which you can see on my screen, you can just simply go to
Window and enable it from here. For example,
character character. First thing which
we need to do is to click here on
new composition. And let's type it
Main, 1920 by 108. FulihD works fine, 30 frames per second and 10 seconds
long. And click Okay. So first thing which you need
to do is to create a text. So let's leftmoslck on this horizontal type
tool and just create a box just like this by leftmost clicking and holding
to create this kind of box, type here, anything
which you like. And you can use any
font, it will work fine. So the size I'm going
to change to 420 click here on the Align panel to align it horizontally
and vertically. If you cannot see this
align panel, once again, you can go to Window and
enable it from here align. Second thing we
should need to do is to select this
main composition, go to layer and go
to a new solid. Let's type it BG for
background, and click Okay. The color doesn't matter
because we can go to effects and
presets and type here amp to get this gradiat ramp and just select it and
drag and drop on this BG. Change here to radial
ramp because in this way, we can simulate light
coming from this corner. We can swap the
colors and change the top one to something
like yellowish, just like this and
second one to orange. You can basically use any
colors which you like. In my case, I've used
something like this, and what I also
like to do is to go to effects and presets
and type here curves, select it and drop
it below under this gradient and make it
a bit more contrast here. In this case, we
will get more of the punchier look
and more colors. So it would be a lot
more interesting. Something like this
should work fine, and you can play
around it if you want. So let's jack and drop this MJ layer on top or
wherever you typed here, and let's duplicate it. This top one, let's
call it MJ Tap. To rename it, just simply press Enter on keyboard and
type wherever you want. In our case, we just need to know where is tap
and what is bottom. This bottom layer, we
want to change the color. So let's type here fill and undergenerate selected fill and drop it on this bottom one. So this will act like a shadow, and we would want to use
a layer null object, we will use it as
a control layer. So select it and press Enter and keyboard and type
here Control layer. We can type here effx and
presets, Color Control. So by the name of it, you can guess that we will
control the color. And first color which we want to control is this
text bottom layer. So to connect it, you just need to select
your Control layer and here Effex and presets by clicking
on this Log button. Select this bottom layer, press E on keyboard to
see the fill effect, hold old key on keyboard, left mostly on this color, left mostly on this Speck whip and drag it to this
color control. And in this way, if we
will click anywhere, just like here, we will connect this bottom text
to this control layer. So if I'm going to solo this layer and go
to Control layer, we can change to any color, and it will change it
from this control layer, which will be pretty
handy in the next video. See you in the next video.
3. Creating Base Animation: So we've created our
first color control on our control layer, and let's add on
this control layer, slider control, which
we will use also. So let's type here
slider control and drop it on this
control layer, and we can unlock it for now because we don't really
need it to be locked. And let's unsol this layer so we would see
everything together. So now what we want
to do is to apply this really cool effect
which called CCSmer. Select it and drop
it here on MJ top. And as you can see, this
is basically the effect. With these two points, we can set the origin and this will be where we
want to stretch this effect. And by change this radius, we can increase the amount of how much of this text
we want to pull out. And exactly this value, we want to connect to
our control layer. So we will be able to create a bunch of copies of this text, and from this control layer, change the amount, how much it will stretch
from the original place. So let's connect it. Select your control layer,
once again, lock it, and then go to this MJ Top, press on keyboard because here we have the
CCS mirror effect. And let's connect this
radius to our slider. Let's hold old Keon keyboard, left mostly on this radius, stopwatch and by
clicking the Speak web, once again, we need to
connect to this slider. Just like this and we
can change it to 777. So you can see, just by
changing this value, we can play around with
the amount of this wave. Next thing which I
want to do is to be able to change
the placement of this control layer
and not just go to this text and
change these values. I want to connect it
to Control layer. So for this, I need to just simply select
our Control layer, press peon keyboard, and connect this from to this position. So let's hold old Keon
keyboard and left mostly on the strap wedge alongside from and connect it with
this PC web just like this. So now if I'm going to
select this control layer, as you can see, I
can just move it around just by using
this control layer. And it's really cool,
but you can also see that it jumps
from the origin, and we don't want it to jump entirely from the origin
where this text was. And for this, we need to type a little expression to
these two coordinates. So let's hold old
Keyon keyboard. I left mostly on the stopwatch let's type here r for variable, space bar, and type it effect
or any name which you like. Then press equals, and
basically we need to connect this to
this from effect. If you will hold Alt while
connecting it just like this, then it will make this
expression universal, which means that it will work in any language of Adobe after effects, which
is pretty cool. Then let's press Enter
and on the second line, let's type the name
of our variable, which is effect, then
plus open square bracket, press zero Cam and -90. And click anywhere
just like here. So what we've done, we've
linked these bolt values with a little shift of 90 pixels
from this control layer, but it will follow
our control layer. If you will take a
look at these numbers, you're going to see that
they both change as I'm changing this position
of our control layer. Let's close it here and here. So as you can see, we've created basically the main
portion of this effect, but we can make it cooler. So let's select this MJ tap, and let's type here effects and precess drop shadow and drop
it on this top text layer. Softness, we can change to 77, and this color we can connect to our control
layer as well. So let's once again select
our control layer to see this effects and
controls. I can hide here. So make sure to select this effect and
controls control layer, then select this MJC tap. Press on keyboard, open drop shadow effect,
hold olds konKeyboard, and left mostly on this
Stopwatch alongside of the color and connect it to this color control.
And click anywhere. So now from this control layer, we can change it to any
color which you like. As you can see, with one click, we can change not only
this shadow effect, but also the little
drop shadow effect, which will come in handy in next video. See you
in the next video.
4. Final Animation: So we've added a
drop shadow effect. Let's unlock this effect and controls because we don't
need it to be locked. Now let's select this MJ tap and create a bunch of copies
of this top layer. So let's close unwanted
effect controls, like this. We can close it a
bunch more times. So to be sure that we will see the effect controls of
each layer which we selected, just go to Window and enable it from here
effects controls. So now we can see the
effect and controls of correspondent
layer just like this. A. So what we want
to do right now, we want to create a bunch of copies so it would look
like in a preview. So let's do exactly this
and make five more copies. So select it and press control D five times to create
these copies, and we can rearrange them. I like to see them from top
to bottom, just like this. And now on this top one, we can use this reach,
which we can increase. You can see it will
pull out even more. I like to use with
the step of 30, which means that this first one, which is just on top of this
bottom layer, just above it, we can change it to 30, then select this next
one and change it to 60. And basically, you
get the gist of it. You just adding another 30. So this will be 120 and here, 150, and on the top one, 180. And you can change to
any steps which you like and play around
to get unique results. And now, if I'm going to select this control layer
and move around, as you can see we already
getting this effect. And what is cool about
this that you can also change this color
so it would blend nicely just like
this and still have these really nice shadows
between these layers, which I think looks pretty cool. Finally, let's just select
all of these text layers. Click here to make them three D. If you cannot see
this three D icon, just click here on
Toggle Switches and modes and enable
it from here, and then just select all
of these text layers. Accept this top one,
just like this. So first one, hold Shift, select last one, it will select all and connect it to this top. If we will animate the stop one, it will animate all
of the rest of them. So let's press on keyboard and let's rotate
it just like this. And as you can see, it works like a three D layer,
which is really cool. So let's set here -88. And here, let's set it like -27. Cl you can rotate to
any kind of value, and I'm going to press P on
keyboard to move it closer to the camera and just rearrange
exactly as you want. So let's say this is first
point of our animation. Click here on Stopwatch
to create a keyframe. Keyframe is basically
a point in time which remembers the value
of certain property. In our case, this keyframe remembers these values of
the property position. So if I'm going to set here to 4 seconds and change
these values, as you can see, it will
create another keyframe. So let's also press
R on keyboard, and let's create a keyframe
for our X rotation. And move this keyframe
to the beginning, rotate it a bit, maybe
something like this. Then let's press P to see
the position and move it a bit further and to
the left just like this. So if I'm going to select
this layer and press U, once again, I'm going
to see my keyframes, which basically remembered this first position
and rotation, and then it will go
to the second one. Finally, we need to animate
also our control layer. Let's press Pe on keyboard
to see the position, and let's move it
here to the end, just like here, so it will just go through all of our text. We can adjust this work area by clicking on this edge
and hold it right here. Let's press zero naped
to see how it looks. Make sure to follow me
here on Skillshare. I have even more classes
on text animation. Also, I have a
bunch of classes on logo animation and even on
visual ex text animations. So if you have
another 12 minutes, you can watch this
class, and you'll get really powerful
result at the end. Make sure to click here on Submit Project and share
your result with me. I watch all of them,
and I can give you tips if you want.
Thank you for watching.
M Jake, Lets Create VFX & Cool Stuff Together
