So this is not going to work with everything.
Now, you can see that those other layers have different color value to them. Sara Wade (04:18): And let's just take this down a little bit. And I'm going to go just over here, click the color. So I'm going to select not the front one, but the back ones. If we go in and adjust the colors of these layers. Now, if I start to rotate this, you can see it looks 3d. It's going to do what I tell the NOL to do, make sure all these layers are 3d and they are because the first one was let's make sure that this no is also a 3d object so that I have control over X, Y, and Z rotations. Now, if I go into this, no layer, everything is parented to the knob. This will allow me to rotate all of the layers together instead of one at a time, which can get messy. Sara Wade (03:33): Next, I'm going to select all of the layers here and I'm going to pick, whip them to the novel. I'm going to put this down at the bottom. What I'm going to do is I'm going to create a new normal layer. It doesn't look very different right now. For this example, I'm just going to duplicate it six times so that we can leave some space here at the top of the layer stack. It doesn't do much right now, but when I duplicate the layer, each copy will have a different index and a different position. I'm just going to close it up with a right bracket at the end. So in this case, it's going to be zero times 10, which is zero. So we are going to make the Z position, the index of this layer, times 10. That's just how the index of the layer works in after effects. Sara Wade (02:49): The second layer is one, the third layers, two. Let's say 10, and that's telling it to use the index of this layer, which is zero, because the first layer is zero. And the second value that this layer already has, here's the really useful, tricky part. Now I'm telling it to use the first value. And what that's telling it is that I want the position to be whatever the first position value is here. Now, what I'm going to put in here is left bracket value zero. What I'm going to do is I'm going to I'll click the stopwatch that's option, click on a Mac, and that's going to open this expression for the position. If you're not an expressions person, don't worry. Sara Wade (01:55): I don't want to do this manually because it's simply going to take more time than I want to spend. If I hit the Peaky, you'll see that my position has 1, 2, 3 values. So I could duplicate this layer and change the Z position. What I want to do is make copies of this layer that are at a slightly different position in Z space. Now I don't want to actually rotate this layer just yet. Now it doesn't look any different right away, but if I hit the R it opens up all these rotations and then I can see if I rotate it in the Y. I'm going to position that let's put it just in the middle for now, and I'm going to just make this a 3d layer. Sara Wade (01:06): The first way we're going to make 3d texts is we're just going to take a plain old text layer. After you're done, watching details are in the description.
Also, you can download the project files I'm using in this video to follow along or to practice this technique.
And finally, we're going to take a look at how to do this in cinema 4d light, which is included with after effects. Next, we're going to take a look at how we can use the built in extrude portions of the text tool. First, we're going to look at stacking 3d layers in space. I can show you three ways to make 3d texts using only the tools available inside of after effects. 3d text looks really cool and MoGraph, but it can be time-consuming to learn and render 3d with the big complex 3d applications. Sara Wade (00:14): Hi, I'm Sara Wade, freelance motion designer and teaching assistant for school of motion. Sara Wade (00:00): Today, I'm going to teach you three ways to make 3d texts using only the tools available with after effects. Learn the basics of the world's most popular motion design software, and get the skills you need to stand out from the crowd!