How to Make Clean Titles in After Effects

CREATE AND ANIMATE SMOOTH GRAPHICS IN AFTER EFFECTS! | We’ll talk all about creating a complex graphic and animating each individual part to make this cool titler!

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash:  https://unsplash.com/photos/Hn8N4I4eHA0

In this After Effects tutorial, we’ll use the simple shape and text tools to build out a nice looking title that can be used in any video project. In this tutorial, I will go over using different elements within shapes, simple timeline animations, easing, using the graph editor, using effects to manipulate a group of animations, and much, much more! I hope you enjoy it!

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Tutorial Recording Notes:

Disclaimer: these are the actual notes I used to record this video and are written in a language you may or may not understand. Hopefully, you find them useful or cool.

1. New comp 2560×1440 @ 60fps
2. Drag in photo and align and scale to frame size or close to it
3. Add a solid black layer above this image and set to 50% opacity
4. Lock up both background layers
5. Drag out a rectangle sized 985×235 and align to the center and fill with white, no stroke
6. Duplicate this shape layer and fill this new rectangle with #7DBA00
7. Grab the text tool and type out “Northern Lights” with Bebas Bold, 150px size, and colored #111A27
8. Center align the text and align the text field to both centers of the document
9. Use the text tool again and type out “Kirkjufell, Iceland” with Bebas Bold, 95px, and fill with white
10. Center horizontally and slide 100px below the bottom of the green box (or so)
11. Create a white-filled rectangle that is sized 1040 x 5px and align it to the horizontal center and nudge it into place between green rectangle and the white text below
12. Create 2x white-filled 25px by 25px balls and place them below the body of the green rectangle
13. Align these to the edges of the long thin rectangle we just created
14. Start animation by selecting the BOTTOM-MOST white shape and animate it from H-scale 0% at frame 0 and by frame 15 it’ll be 100% wide
15. Ease Easy all the animation throughout the project
16. Select both the keyframes and enter the graph editor and add a nice little bump to the animation
17. Repeat the H-scale animation with the green shape, but animate from 0% at frame 0 to 100% at frame 30
18. Select the main text layer and open the Positioning of the text and set the H value to something like 1100px and animate it back to its original by frame 30 to give the text a little slide as it appears
19. Duplicate the green shape and drag it above the text and set the text to track matte from this layer, but go into the Scaling that we animated on this duplicated layer and move the beginning keyframe inward 5 frames or so to give the edges of the text/mask some breathing room
    Make sure you set this new green layer to the track matte for the text layer
20. For the left ball, open the Positioning and animate it from the very center out to edge of the bar where you had lined it up before on the 20th frame and then copy this keyframe to the 25th frame and set the centering to 100px less for the left ball and 100px more for the right ball.
21. Easy Ease all these animations as you’re creating them
22. Select the thin bar you created and animate the H scaling to go from 0% at frame 1 to 100% at frame 30
23. Double check all of this later
24. Animate the secondary text using the Position parameter and animate along the Y axis. Drop a keyframe at frame 30 to lock in its finished position and then move back to the 8th frame and set the Y axis
25. Apply a simple track matte so the text can look like it’s coming from beneath the horizontal line of the barbell.
26. Double check all layers and animations and make any corrections you see fit.
27. Grab all the text and shape layers (not the solid color or background layer, though) and pre compose them into a comp of their own.
28. Now go to the Effects panel and search for “Slant” and drag this effect out and drop it on the pre-comp we just made and then simply create a “30” slant for this artwork to see even more magic and totally change the way the animation looks.