Create a Particle Text/Logo Reveal Effect with After Effects! (NO PLUGINS!)

Learn about expressions, keyframe animation, effects, and more in this detailed After Effects tutorial!

We’ll create a looping, bursting particle effect that animates along a path and reveals a sliding text logo in our video composition.

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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 composition at UHD size 3840×2160 w/ black background
2. Type out the word “Particles” using Kenyan Coffee at 385pt with 225 tracking and set to all caps
3. Align the text to the center and line up the anchor with the center as well
4. Create a new Null object (make sure you select it in the Layer’s panel) and use the Pen tool to draw the path along which you want the particle burst to occur
5. Hit the letter “M” and copy this mask path we just drew and then delete it
6. Hit the letter “P” to pop open the position, select it in the layer’s panel and paste that path in here to create our animation-along-a-path
7. Create a new Solid layer and drag out CC Particle World and shut off all the guides for it
8. Set Velocity and Gravity to 0
9. Set the shape to Tetrahedron with a birth size of 0.010 and death of 0.250
10. Set the birth color to #00DBCB and death color to #5D00F1
11. Size variation to 100% and opacity both at 50%
12. Under Physics, set Animation to Viscouse and 0.50 velocity
13. Birth rate 55 and Longevity 0.6
14. Now we want to link the movement of the particle production to that Null object animation we just made
15. Alt/Opt click the stopwatch for Position X and write this expression to link this to the movement of the Null object:
16. (thisComp.layer(“Null Layer Name”).position[0]-(thisComp.width/2))/thisComp.width
17. Alt/Opt click the stopwatch for Position Y and write this expression:
18. (thisComp.layer(“Null Layer Name”).position[1]-(thisComp.height/2))/thisComp.width
19. Select the Null object layer and adjust the speed of the animation to speed this thing up
20. Animate a tracking bounce, linear wipe, and a 3D Y rotation to this text and work it in with the particle trails
21. Add a gradient ramp to the text layer to blend the bottom of the text into the background
22. Drag video in for the background, scale up using Cmd + Opt + F and then drag blue wash effect onto that video layer and reduce the overall opacity to 10%
23. If the bottom of the text is visible, set the text layer to Screen to drop away the black
24. BOOM!