Custom Call Out Titles After Effects & Auto Motion Tracking Tutorial

CREATE CUSTOM AFTER EFFECTS CALL OUT TITLES! | Build the graphics to make a cool call out title and animate it and then track it through a moving video.

In this After Effects tutorial, we will build a custom call out title using shapes and lines and then break the full graphic down and animate each part of it to create a smooth and beautiful call out title that will appear and pop out as it travels through your video. After creating the call out title, we’ll use the Motion Tracking in After Effects to automatically track the call out title and attach it to an object that is moving through the video with ease.

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Site Exclusive 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 1920×1080
2. We’re going to build the entire call out before we start animating
3. NOTE: All fills and strokes to begin will be white!
4. Grab the Ellipse tool and drag out a perfect circle and open the contents of this Shape Layer in the Layers area
5. Drop down “Ellipse 1” in the contents area and select “Ellipse Path 1” and set the size to 350
6. Hit Cmd/Ctrl + D to duplicate this ellipse and change the size to 250
7. Choose “Merge Paths” from the Add menu and choose to Subtract in order to punch a hole in the center of the original path shape with the new, smaller shape
8. NAME THIS LAYER “outer ring”
9. Duplicate that entire outer ring layer and delete all the stuff that we just duplicated and set the size of the remaining “Ellipse 1 > Ellipse Path 1 > Size” to 100
10. Align the layers to everything is centered up perfectly
11. NAME THIS LAYER “inner dot”
12. Go to the Preferences>Grids & Guides and set bright grid color, grid line every 100 with 1 subdivision
13. Turn on the grid and snap to grid
14. Grab the Pen tool and draw a two-part angled arm from the center dot to create the call out arm snapping it to the grid
15. Give this a 10pt stroke
16. NAME THIS LAYER “arm”
17. Create a new rectangle shape layer that is snapped between one set of horizontal grid lines for 100px height and make it as long as the flat part of the arm we created
18. NAME THIS LAYER “top title”
19. Duplicate this shape layer and scale it down to 60% and position it below and to the angle-side of the “arm” we drew
20. (Snapping will help position it perfectly on the left edge/arm side)
21. NAME THIS LAYER “small bottom title”
22. Duplicate that shape layer and change the scale to 45% wide and 100% wide for this shape and move this new shape below the small rectangle we were just working with
23. Animate the ring/dot:
24. Scale each of these two dot/ring layers from 0% to their finished size over whatever number of frames you think feels right.
25. Change the easing to Ease In and select the keyframes for the outer ring layer and open the Graph Editor and drag the graph line up a bit higher than the centered flat graph line.
26. This will give us a built-in bounce animation effect
27. Tweak and adjust the animation as needed
28. Animate the arm:
29. On the “arm” layer open Contents> use the Add menu to add a Trim Paths
30. Animate End from 0% to 100% and add some easing to complete the effect
31. Animate the top title:
32. Open the “top title” layer and duplicate the “Rectangle 1” shape and add an Offset Path to “Rectangle 2” and offset the path 10
33. Dump the fill for “Rectangle 2” and turn on the stroke and set the stroke size to 3
34. Add a Trim Paths after “Stroke 1” and animate the Start and End each from 0% to 100% and stagger them.
35. Ease the animations as needed
36. Duplicate “Rectangle 2” and change the Offset angle to 120º for “Rectangle 3” and change the stroke weight to 5
37. Select the “Rectangle 1” and use the Pan Behind tool and move the anchor point for the shape to the left-center of the shape
38. Animate the scale for the width from 0% to 100% and add easing and go to the Graph Editor and drag the graph above the center graph line to create a bounce ease effect for this top title animation.
39. Animate the bottom small title:
40. Create a bounce animation for this effect by animating the scale and adding that same type of easing.
41. Animate the bottom large title:
42. Create the same exact animation for the large bottom title and add easing and a bounce to this as well
43. Change the stroke and fill colors for the ring/dot, the arm, and the top title holder to #F9DC5C
44. Change the bottom title holders fill colors to #ED254E and set the opacity to 75% for both of these shapes
45. Add text to the top title area. Align it to the left, Bebas BOLD, 70px size. “Statue of Liberty” Move it into place as needed. Set fill color to #ED254E (pink)
46. Duplicate that text and move down the to small, bottom title area and resize to 50px and set color to #F9DC5C and add text “September 1875”
47. Duplicate that text and reset size to 70px and move to text area below and add text “New York”
48. Copy the “top title” rectangle shape and paste it and drag that new shape layer above the text in the top title area and delete all the additional shapes from the Content area of this layer. LEAVE THE RECTANGLE THAT WOULD UNCOVER THE TEXT AS A MASK!
49. Use the Toggle Switches/Modes button to show the Track Matte options in the Layers panel and choose to Alpha Matte that layer we just dragged above.
50. Stagger the start of this animation so it begins JUST after the top title text holder begins its own animation. (just make it look nice and timed well!)
51. Repeat this technique to mask the two bottom text holder areas
52. Drag some video in and create a comp from the video by right-clicking on it and choosing to do it.
53. Drag in the composition that contains our call out title and manually keyframe to animate along with it.
54. Animation>Track Motion
55. Click (hold) and drag the point where it needs to be
56. Stretch over girl’s entire head
57. Analyze the footage
58. Right-click in layers area and create new Null
59. Edit the Target in the Tracker panel and target the Null object
60. Apply the motion tracking to that object (X and Y)
61. Drag in the call out title and set the anchor point to be on the starting dot
62. Drag the call out so it’s positioned with the dot on her head
63. Scale the call out down a little to proper size
64. Use the pick whip to attach this call out title to the motion tracked Null obj.