Today we're going to create this animation using a bunch of techniques. Some interesting masking,
offsetting motion, animating colors, timing and super soft gradients. And if you're like me you'll
find them really useful in a ton of different types of projects and situations. I designed this
in illustrator separated the letters onto their own layers and imported them into after effects
and you can download the final project file as well down in the description we're going
to approach this animation by animating one letter and one beam getting those the way we like it and
then copying that to the other layers so it might start slow but it all comes together at the end
faster than you might expect first let's create our beam which will introduce our first letter m
we'll grab our rectangle tool and we're just going to click and drag the approximate shape of our
beam because we're going to dive deep into the settings and adjust its size specifically to be
the exact width of the M now we could toggle down the shape layer of the contents the rectangle the
rectangle path to get to the size but if they're all closed and we want to open everything we can
just hold Ctrl or command and click the arrow here and that reveals every single property and size is
right at the top so command clicking an arrow opens everything that is a very useful shortcut
if you're digging for a property that's buried deep deep down there so let's unlink the width and
height and we want this to be the full height of the comp so let's make that 1080 and for the width
we'll make that 110 and let's place the shape layer underneath our M and make sure that lines
up and there we go it's the exact width of our M and how how could I possibly know the width well
earlier in illustrator I measured it now let's make sure it lines up with the top and the bottom
of the comp and let's name it beam and color green because we always label our layers and let's
change the fill to a linear gradient fill we can also cycle through the fill options by holding alt
and clicking The Fill color here now to set the direction of the gradient we want to grab these
two handles and drag each of them to different ends of our shape and when click on the box next
to fill to bring up our gradient editor the color that's currently black let's eye drop a dark green
color and then let's eye drop the other colors to make a gradient something like this there now to
get it to fade off as you go towards the top we're going to add a mask so with this layer selected
we're going to grab our rectangle tool and we're going to make sure that we select not tool crates
shapes not that but tool create masks and we're going to click and drag at around the bottom half
bottom two-thirds of our beam and I'm extending the mask pretty far away from all the other edges
then we want to hit F on our keyboard which will bring up the mask feather and let's increase that
until we get a nice soft gradient fading off at the top let's drag that up a fair bit let's go
all the way up to 700 and we can maybe drag our mask down a little bit I'm going to hit B on my
keyboard to bring up my arrow selection tool and then just drag that down a little touch there and
this is why we left a big gap on the outsides and the other sides because if we make it too close to
our beam it's going to fade out on the sides as well and we don't want that so now let's animate
our beam coming on and we can do that with its scale so let's bring up its scale with s on our
keyboard and let's unlink the width and the height so we can just animate the scale on the y-axis and
it will grow and Shrink but to make it grow and Shrink from the bottom of the comp we are going
to need to adjust the Anchor Point of the shape layer which is currently right in the middle so
let's grab our Anchor Point tool select it and drag it down to the bottom now you do want to make
sure snapping is selected because that will make it much easier and let's keyframe its scale around
one and a half seconds in that's when it will be at its maximum height and then at the start we're
going to drag that down to zero there so now our beam is growing but we can make that animation
much more interesting we'll select those keyframes hit F9 on our keyboard to easy ease them and then
let's tweak those in the graph editor at the very start we're going to move this handle up to get a
really sharp severe e so it really accelerates in just really bursts out of there and then make it
really ease into its final position there that's looking good let's get out of the graph editor and
we need to animate our beam disappearing now we could animate its scale going down again that's
no fun and if we use another property it gives us more freedom to change the timings later that is
much much easier so what other properties of this layer could we animate to get it to reveal off we
could animate The Mask path moving downwards we could animate the position of this layer going
off screen as well but what we're going to do is animate its opacity so let's open that up with t
on our keyboard and around half a second in let's keyframe its opacity there at 100 and then I'm
gonna hit you on my keyboard to bring up all the other keyframes and where they finish as well one
and a half seconds let's drag the opacity down to zero so it animates up from the bottom and as it
almost reaches at the top it starts to fade away and because the animation on and offer on separate
Dimensions it's much easier for us to move these about and see if we prefer it animating off slower
or maybe animating off much sooner let's keep it where it was before We'll add a bit of easing with
F9 on the keyboard and just a tiny bit of tweaking in the graph editor and we've got a nice Fade Out
now for some extra Pizzazz let's duplicate this beam layer with Ctrl or command D and we're going
to expand it a little bit make it a bit wider so let's open up its size property and increase that
to 150 which is wide enough to exactly touch the letter next to it and so this sort of secondary
beam is not so intense let's turn its opacity down to 70 when it's at its maximum so now we just need
that glow at the very bottom of our beam and for that I'm going to show you another gradient
technique just using feathered masks so let's grab our rectangle tool this time we want it to
have a solid fill let's select a dark green color and draw a big shape down the bottom of our beam
then we want to select our ellipse tool from the toolbar up here and make sure we have tool crate
mask selected and then we want to draw roughly an ellipse down the bottom of that beam we can
open up feather with f again on our keyboard and increase that to get a nice soft gradient let's
go up to 400 which is why we made our shape layer nice and big in the first place so we don't run
into the edge of the shape and then to adjust this shape slightly I'm going to grab the pen
tool click the top point of our ellipse here and just drag that up a touch and adjust these handles
I'm just going to drag them down and to separate their sort of connectiveness across the point I'm
going to hold alt or option and then we can move each one individually let's just have an Point
down a little bit so it gets a little narrower and almost glows up our beam a tiny bit now we need to
add some keyframes for this glow to animate on and off again we'll do that with opacity zero at the
start then 100 then back to zero the default Easy E should work for this too let's call that glow
to separate it a bit in the timeline too let's also drag that below our beam layers and I think
we want our glow to animate a little sooner than I'd be so let's select our beam layers and just
drag them across so they start half a second later so then we see the glow coming up from underneath
very shortly before we have that beam explode up out of the bottom of the screen now we do need
more colors for this glow so let's duplicate this glow layer again controller command D and we're
going to change its fill color to our medium green and we're going to make this glow a little tighter
to the center of our beam so let's open up feather again with f on the keyboard let's drag this down
to around 200 and then I'm going to double click to select the mask and then drag it down closer
to the center and then let's do that once more duplicating it again again selecting the very
lightest color green for the fill reducing the feather this time down to 100 and make it even
tighter to our beam now depending on your settings you might notice a fair bit of banding happening
where the color is kind of separated into these big chunky stripes and the best way we can solve
that is to change our bit depth and it's currently eight so let's select that over here change it to
16 bits per Channel now after effects is working with more colors and the gradient is nice and
soft and smooth now I just love the kind of soft gradients you can get with this effect and it is
really versatile too because we can adjust each of these masks and the amount of Feathering as well
and we can decide which colors are melting into one another now let's take a look at all of their
opacity keyframes and to make this a bit more interesting let's have the lighter colors start
to animate on a little later and then fade off a little sooner it's a small touch but I definitely
think it improves the effect and makes it a little more interesting than just a simple fade on it
fade off and there our beam is done now let's select all of those layers and pre-comp them with
shift control roll or command C let's call that beam now for the type animation let's animate our
M first then we're going to copy its animation to the other letters but to make that easier we need
the anchor points of each of these letters to be in the same place at least vertically at the
same height and because each letter is a different height the anchor points are in different places
so let's grab our Anchor Point tool and drag the Anchor Point of each letter to the bass line so
they are all at the same height again make sure snapping is on to make this easier now to the m
and we can hide all of the others for now so we're just focusing on what we need and we're animating
its position so let's open that up with p on the keyboard and we are going to right click that
and separate Dimensions we are only animating it vertically so we do not need the x-axis confusing
us when we get into the graph editor and let's have our M layer start on the very first frame
that add beam appears which is a frame seven and now it's already kind of looking like a m is
appearing with that beam we're going to exaggerate that with this position animation So at around one
second I think let's keyframe position that will be its final position where it will rest and then
we don't want it to have a little bit of a bounce so a little bit earlier we're going to key from
that same position and then at the very start let's move it down a little over the height of
the M itself there now m is raising up with the beam but we need to tweak that a bit in the graph
editor so let's select these keyframes hit F9 and let's go into the graph editor now we are
in the value graph editor which for me is way more intuitive for dealing with this kind of animations
some people do prefer the speed graph though I'll make some more room for this graph here zoom in a
bit more and first we're going to adjust it to be pretty fast at the start and in this middle
keyframe let's move it down in the graph editor which moves that amp up a little bit so it's going
to have a little bounce there something like that I think is working well now our m is done so let's
apply that to all the other letters so we can turn them all back on and we're going to copy these
keyframes with just Ctrl C select all the other layers and three start paste them as well so now
they all have that bounce animation the Tittle the dot on our eye is still attached to the Baseline
though so I'm going to open up its position keyframes and just move that back up above the
eye there now let's drag each of these letters forward or backwards two frames in the timeline
and I'm kind of ping-ponging between the left and right so it kind of goes back and forth until the
last letter is I and that is because I'm going to do something a little bit interesting with the
Tittle but first more beams and this is where it gets really fun we're going to duplicate our beam
comp and we're just going to drag that duplicate over to the next letter that animates in which is
the O and because we've measured earlier lining it up exactly flush with the next letter there
two beams down I'm actually one eye beams above the letters so let's drag this up as well and
that gives just a tiny gradient as we see through the beam and it colors our letters underneath and
of course we need to offset that beam two frames as well and let's do that for each of the letters
there now we're getting close and one thing I have noticed which I didn't pick up on earlier is the
top of our beam ends with a straight line not a nice soft gradient like we want so let's go back
into our beam pre-comp and that's the benefit of having this pre-comp because we can go and make
subtle adjustments inside here and that I believed is to do with our mask here and the amount of
Feathering so let's just hide the outside beam and adjust this first one and we can drag this
down a little we can even reduce the Feathering to maybe 500 just so now we get a nice soft gradient
towards the top and we don't get that harsh line that was there before and let's do that for our
outside beam as well there back to the main comp and that's looking much better now we're getting
very close there are two large small details one is some animation on the Tittle the top of
the eye that we have here and I think we want to delay that a little bit so it is the last thing to
animate so let's open up its position properties and let's just go into the graph editor and we're
just going to move its last keyframe back a little bit and tweak the easing a touch so now it just
animates a little bit slower and maybe a little bit higher than the other letters as well there
we are that's definitely the last thing we see now and let's add a rotation animation to it too
bring that up with Arena keyboard and rotate it at 90 degrees so it ends up looking the same anyway
there we go definitely liking the look of that and the last thing I want to add is a bit of a just
flashing color animation to each of the letters as they're beamed on so let's pick a letter to
start let's pick our end this time at the very end and we're going to add a fill effect to this layer
and that's either that fill effect to the dark green and we're going to add a keyframe to its
color so the very start of this layer is going to be that dark green then when it's at its Max
position let's change it to the lighter green and then when it rests back to the dark green
again and let's easy to use those so now the end has a very slight flash of color as it raises up
again pretty subtle but I think it all works together and adds to make it just generally
more interesting than just some lights fading on so to copy that to all of our other layers let's
select the very start of this layer select that fill effect copy it and then just Ctrl V paste
it onto all of our other layers except the dot of the eye because that's a different color and
we're going to make sure the playhead is at the very start of each of these layers that way it
pastes the keyframes in the same position too well in relation to the start of each layer so
then they all now have a little subtle flash on as they enter and that's the last thing
we're doing that needs our color so we can hide our palette layer and there we have it a whole
bunch of techniques that come together to make a pretty neat glow text reveal now I created
this originally on stream as part of a one hour challenge with the students from my master motion
design course they made some awesome animations in that time frame too here are some of theirs
it needs more money more drugs more rock and roll no it needs motion
and if you'd like to learn more ways to animate type in After Effects I've
got just the video for you thanks for watching I'll see you there
foreign