Mastering Text Animation in After Effects: Transforming Graphics with Shape Layers

So in this series of lessons, we'll be using the text animation started file, which you can find in the text animation folder. It's a continuation of the previous shape layer animation, but we're gonna focus basically on the idea of animating text as graphics, using text as graphics itself. So let's open it.

I'm gonna get the message that it's an older version. I'll say, okay. Now, if you had completed the previous lessons, you could just have worked from that file.

If you have been working continuously through all the lessons, this is the final result of the last lesson of the shape animation section. If you wanna just continue from your previous file, no problem at all. So I'm gonna save this.

Again, I'm just gonna name it in text animation, my name, and I'll call it whatever I want. That, no problem at all. So once you got that saved, you're ready to go.

So for this section, I'm gonna be working with the percentage graph right here. So as I've done before, I'm gonna turn this into its own comp so I can add as many layers as I want without having to worry about cluttering my main timeline. So I'm just gonna right click on that, go to select, and I'm looking for the graph percentage bars.

You could, of course, just highlight that layer if you know which one it is, but if you don't, the ability to select visually from the comp window can be very, very helpful. So that's the layer. I'm just gonna pre-comp it.

Right click on the layer. Okay, pre-compose. Right click on the layer of the timeline, pre-compose, or it's layer, pre-compose.

However you do it is fine. The keyboard shortcut is Command Shift C or Control Shift C. Okay, again, I'll leave all attributes because I wanna create a new comp that is the same size, the same physical dimensions as this layer content. And I'm just gonna fix the name a little bit because I don't like when it adds one to it, but that's personal preference.

You can call it whatever you want as long as it makes sense to you. I'll say okay. I'm gonna go grab that, drop it in the pre-comps folder, keep it nice and organized.

And then I'm gonna open that pre-comps, I can work with it. Ab, give me a list of all of the pre-comps that are in the shape animation HUD composition. And they're listed in the order their layers display in.

So graph, percentage bars, graph, bar graphs, that sort of thing. So percentage bars is what I'm working with right now. Now, the dimensions of this graphic were not actually square, though they look pretty square.

So the first thing I'm gonna do, because I'm also gonna have to give myself some more space for this because I wanna make this actually larger. I wanna have these bars actually grow and change and shift. I'm gonna make them scale out larger.

And right now, if I did that, they'd vanish because they'd be hitting the edge. So I'm just gonna make the comp size a little bigger, composition, composition settings. You can make it whatever you want.

So I'm gonna turn off the lock asset ratio so I can change them independently, but I'm gonna make mine 350 × 350, like so. Okay, there is a preview button down here. So as you click away from it, you should see the update.

Now, what I'm going for is these bars are gonna scale out. So they've gotta have enough space here that they can scale up and out without actually hitting the edge. That looks pretty good, I can go for that.

Okay, I also want it to be a perfect square because it looks pretty close to a square, but I want it to be a perfect square in this case. But if you wanna make it bigger, no problem at all. It's up to you, not gonna hurt anything.

Now, I'm gonna use this as a reference. So I'm gonna go to properties panel. I'm gonna make my opacity of this 50% because I don't wanna see it outside of this pre-comp I'm using it in.

I'm gonna right click, go to guide layer. I'll go back to shape animation HUD. You'll see that it is now hidden because that's how guide layers work.

Guide layers allow the layer to only be visible in the pre-comp they're being used in. They're not seen when that pre-comp is used anyplace else. So it's a really great feature for working with templates.

And then I'm gonna lock it so it doesn't move around because it's really hard to use something as a reference if it moves around too much. Let's go to like that. Now I'm gonna make some shapes.

So that one right there. I think the best way to do this is to make these three circles as one shape layer. I'll make the bars here so I can animate them out of text.

I'll show you how to do that. And then this is gonna be just a text layer again. I'll do that a little later.

So let's find that ellipse tool. Press and hold on the rectangle tool in your tools panel. It'll give you this option of the other four tools that are here, ellipse tool.

Now for this, I wanna have a stroke but no fill. So I'll click on the word fill and turn it off, none. And for stroke, I'll click on the color box and pick a color.

You can make it whatever you want. I'm gonna actually stick to a mid-tone gray for this. I can always colorize it later, I'm not sure.

Okay. And I want a circle, I want a perfect circle. And the simplest way to do that is to double click on the actual ellipse tool itself.

This creates a circle because the comp is a square. It creates an ellipse where the width and the height match the comp's width and height exactly. So the comp was 350 × 350.

And if I look at the size, 350 × 350. That's what it does, okay. Now what I'm gonna do is go into size down here, hover over that number and just bring it down until it lines up better with the reference image.

And by the way, this is the point I realized that the original graphic wasn't perfectly created, centered to each other. They're a little off, okay. So I'm just gonna make that a little bigger.

Maybe I'll make the size of this, let's say, let's see how 10 is. 10's not that bad, 10's pretty cool, but maybe a little smaller, maybe eight. Now, to be honest, it doesn't actually have to match the original because no one's ever gonna see the original reference, but I'm just trying to make it like pretty decent.

So I think I'll go with like 285 or 290 for the width. That's good, I like that. Like 290 I think is actually nice.

I'm just trying to approximate it, no problem at all. Now, that is going to be my outer ring. So I'm just gonna double click on the ellipse that I just created in the properties panel.

That's gonna reveal it in the timeline. On my keyboard, I'm gonna tap the enter or return key on my main keyboard. That makes the name feel editable.

I'm just gonna call it outer ring. I realize I misspelled ring, so actually I miscapitalized ring, I guess. And then again, return or enter again finalizes the name change.

I'm gonna rename the entire layer by highlighting it. Again, pressing return or enter. For the layer, you can also right click and choose rename from the menu.

And then I'm just gonna rename this rings, R-I-N-G-S, and I'm happy. So I got one ring, I need two more. So I'm gonna take that outer ring right here, just highlight it, I'm gonna hide its properties, I don't need to see them.

And then I'm gonna duplicate it. Command D or Control D is the keyboard shortcut for that. Duplicate is not a right click choice.

I can't right click on the shape and duplicate. So with it highlighted, I either use a keyboard shortcut or edit, duplicate. Okay, I get ring two.

I'm gonna rename ring two. Again, return or enter. I'm gonna call it mid ring.

For the record, there is no reason for this, other than that's what I wanna call it. You can rename your shapes, whatever you want. You can even leave the default names.

I just find it harder to work with if I do that. Naming things helps me remember where it is, find it later, and also I can use the search field. So I got mid ring.

In my properties, mid ring is highlighted. I'm gonna go in and I'm just gonna pull the size down until it matches the reference image, okay? So maybe about 240,230, what you like. I'm gonna pull down the stroke weight and I'm holding down Command or Control as I scrub this to make the number go smaller, like that.

So maybe like around three is a good number for that, two or three, two and a half, something like that. Okay, and I'll just pull down the size a little more. Then maybe 235 is a good number for that.

But again, it's up to you. Okay, that's pretty good. Matches it pretty decently.

Again, no one's ever gonna see the reference. If it doesn't match perfectly, not a problem. So I've got mid ring.

I'm gonna duplicate that. I'm gonna highlight mid ring. I did this right from properties, clicking on mid ring, I get mid ring two.

When I duplicate, I use the keyboard shortcut, Command D or Control D again. Double click, reveals it, highlights the name and the timeline. Return it to your keyboard and rename it.

This is gonna be inner ring, like that. Again, I'll adjust its size to match the reference image. I'm gonna pull its stroke weight up, maybe about five or six, something like that.

It's up to you. And then I'll adjust that a little more. I'm thinking maybe 185 is a good number for that.

But again, have fun with that. By duplicating the rings, making one ring, duplicating it, sizing it down and doing that again and again and again, I'm basically guaranteeing the rings are exactly centered on each other. The thing to keep in mind when it comes to shape layers, I can't use the align panel.

The align panel works layer by layer. It doesn't actually allow you to use it on shapes in a single shape layer. If I wanna keep my number of layers down, I wanna have multiple shapes in that layer.

But that prevents me from doing certain commands like align. So there's a duplicate, resize, duplicate, resize, gets around that weakness. That's why I did it.

Now, outer ring. I'm gonna hide those properties right there. Outer ring.

So I need to cut down on a ring so it's much smaller. It's not supposed to be a full circle. It's gonna be like a quarter circle, really.

Or maybe like, I don't know, 40% of it, maybe. I don't know, whatever, something like that. So I need to be able to hide parts of this.

And this is actually where the trim path effect we use to draw the lines on is helpful. So the effects that can be added to shape layers can actually be added to the entire layer when you have the layer name highlighted or to any individual shape or shapes on that layer when you have the shape name highlighted. If I click on outer ring to select it in the timeline, or I can do it actually here in properties, and I go to the Add button and I choose Trim Paths again, the effect is added directly to outer ring and only to outer ring.

When I open it up, start like that. I'm just gonna approximate it. So I'm thinking about 50%, maybe.

End, I'll pull from the other side. I'm gonna lower that value until, again, it approximates the size. Looks pretty decent.

I'll go with like, let's say 80. And I got that. Now, there's a graphic of the line that actually has like sharp edged corners.

I don't like that actually. So in the properties panel right here with outer ring highlighted, I'm just gonna give it line cap of rounded, that second button right there, rounded off. Okay, so I'm actually gonna, to do that, I'm actually gonna pull down the size a little bit of end and start.

Maybe I'll make this 45%. I'm sorry, 55% is what I meant. 55%, so it's ending a little more.

Now I can actually, if I zoom in, I can actually see it's rounded. So I'm just gonna adjust that until it's the size I want. I'm just gonna make it like kind of like there, maybe.

And again, if the numbers are changing too quickly, holding down Command or Control as you scrub them will allow them to change slower. I'm gonna zoom out a little bit. I used my middle mouse button, but again, you can use the keyboard shortcut to zoom out, which is comma and period, zoom in and out.

Same thing with end. I'm gonna change that a little bit right there. So it's a little easy to see.

The thickness of the line, the line weight makes it easier or harder to actually see whether it's a rounded edge or not. So the thicker the line is, the more obvious that rounded edge becomes. It's kind of cool.

So it looks good, I like that. I'm happy with that, no problem at all. Okay, so, and now I've got my initial shape made.

Again, if I need to adjust it or move it, I can go like mid ring, for example, change its size if I'm noticing I don't like what it is, change its thickness, however you like, okay? Entirely up to you. I'm gonna zoom out a little bit so I can see this. Panning around, looks pretty good.

And that's the initial setup for the graphic. Once I've got this done, I can now make that dashed line ring, and then eventually I'll make the text as well. So let me hide this.

And that's the initial setup of the rings for this graphic.