AE Basics 36: Pimping Your Text with Layer Styles

Adobe After Effects basics Tutorial at Creative COW

Andrew Devis

©2012 CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

Article Focus:
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 36: In this tutorial, Andrew Devis shows how you can take ordinary looking text and with very little effort use some simple light-weight effects to make it look outstanding - which can make the difference between a low quality and high quality looking production.

Related Articles / Tutorials:

Adobe After Effects basics

AE Basics 4: Importing Photoshop Documents (PSDs)
Play Video
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 4: In this fourth tutorial, Andrew Devis goes over the options After Effects gives you for importing Photoshop documents. When you try and import a Photoshop document, After Effects gives you a dialogue box with several options. Andrew looks at those options so that you get exactly what you want from your Photoshop document when you bring it into After Effects.

Tutorial, Video Tutorial

Adobe After Effects basics

AE Basics 5: Naming & Organising
Play Video
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 5: In this fifth tutorial, Andrew Devis explains how to name items in your project panel, timeline and effects control panel and then goes on to show how to organise your assets in your project panel so that the items are easy to find and your project will be simple to understand.

Tutorial, Video Tutorial

Adobe After Effects basics

AE Basics 6: Previewing Your Work
Play Video
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 6: In this sixth tutorial, Andrew Devis goes through the options for previewing your compositions in After Effects. Andrew shows how to listen to audio layers as well as how to set up the RAM previewing options while giving some keyboard short-cuts for navigating your timeline. He also shows how to set a layer marker while listening back to some audio to give you a visual point to synchronise your other layers.

Tutorial, Video Tutorial

Adobe After Effects basics

AE Basics 7: Timeline Basics 1
Play Video
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 7 Part 1: In the first part of this seventh tutorial, Andrew Devis starts to go through all the 'bells & whistles' or buttons in the timeline panel. Andrew shows how to find all the various buttons available and starts to explain what each one is and what it does.

Tutorial, Video Tutorial

Adobe After Effects basics

AE Basics 7: Timeline Basics Part 2
Play Video
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 7 Part 2: In the second part of this seventh tutorial, Andrew Devis continues to go through all the 'bells & whistles' or buttons in the timeline panel. Continuing from where he left off in the previous tutorial, Andrew finishes off explaining what each of the buttons does along with a tip on changing the speed of a clip in the timeline giving great visual feedback.

Tutorial, Video Tutorial

Adobe After Effects basics

AE Basics 31: The Brainstorm Function & Shape Layers
Play Video
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 31: In this tutorial, Andrew Devis demonstrates the "Brainstorm" function with shape layers. The "Brainstorm" function is a tool to give creative ideas based on your own selection of properties to be randomized for creative effect. As long as you select more than one property you can get a stream of creative ideas through Brainstorm that will fuel your imagination and help in the creative process.

Tutorial, Video Tutorial

Adobe After Effects basics

AE Basics 32: Creating Motion Backgrounds with Shapes Layers
Play Video
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 32: In this tutorial Andrew Devis takes some of what has been learnt over the previous AE Basics tutorials on shape layers and puts them together to create a motion background for text. In this tutorial Andrew covers shape creation, shape duplication, working with multiple shape layers at a time, pre-composing multiple shape layers etc. Andrew also introduces "Adjustment Layers" to create a blurred vignette and to use as a color adjustment layer while showing how to move between comps to get the best possible look.

Tutorial, Video Tutorial

Adobe After Effects basics

AE Basics 33: Options for Creating Text
Play Video
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 33: In this tutorial, Andrew Devis starts to look at text creation and animation in After Effects starting with the different ways to create text in the composition panel.

Tutorial, Video Tutorial

Adobe After Effects basics

AE Basics 34: Font Selection and Faux Options
Play Video
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 34: In this tutorial, Andrew Devis shows how to quickly select and change your font selection and modify its look and feel with the Faux options in the character panel.

Tutorial, Video Tutorial

Adobe After Effects basics

AE Basics 35: The Character Panel
Play Video
AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 35: In this tutorial, Andrew Devis shows all the options in the character panel and how to use them to create good looking text. Also included in this tutorial are some more hidden options that can make a big difference to the look and feel of your selected font.

Tutorial, Video Tutorial

MORE