Well. Hello, everyone, Kelsey here, and welcome back to Gal.
Today, I'm going to show you how easy it is to create a text bubble
animation from your phone and have it track to the motion of your text.
Now, I was actually inspired
to create this effect from watching the Netflix series Sex Education.
If you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend it.
And they actually use the text messaging effect to help drive the story.
So I thought for this tutorial I would show you
exactly how to recreate the same look that they did in this series.
So for this demo clip, I'm using a clip from Envato Elements
who sponsored today's video.
And remember, you can get 70 percent off your first month of elements
by using my Envato partner link just down below.
And by using my link, it helps support the channel. So thank you in advance.
And without further ado, let's go ahead and jump on in.
So in this part, I'm going to show you how to design the text message
bubbles from scratch, like how to add all the texture and all of that.
If you don't want to learn how to do that, you can actually skip ahead
to the track motion and download the template that
I designed with these text message bubbles already created.
And you can get it for free if you sign up to become a patron.
And I've put a link just down below
or you can purchase my text message bubble pack.
That includes sound effects, by the way, from my store.
So if you're here to learn
how to do it from scratch, let's go ahead and go into after effects.
So here inside of after effects, I already have my clip preloaded up.
And now we need to create a new composition.
So just click on this icon here and I'm going to name this text
bubble one, and I'm going to be using the full HD 1920 by 1080 pixels.
So this is going to be the comp that we create the text in.
So let's start with the type tool to emulate the sex education.
Look, let's first click to type out the name of the sender.
So you can see from the character panel,
I'm using Helvetica, bold size 70.
And I'm going to select an orange color and make the text all caps.
Then I'm going to select
the type tool again to type out the simple text message line.
And for this text, I'll make it lowercase and change the color to white.
Then we can use a selection tool to move the text elements in alignment
stacked nicely on top of each other and left aligned.
Next, we can click on the rectangle tool and select the rounded rectangle tool.
And let's click and drag out
the rectangle tool to create the shape around the text.
And you can see that mine is already blue
as I preselected this color in the field just above.
So now we have the rectangle layer above the text inside of the composition.
So let's move the rectangle layer down below the text layers.
Now, to make the text pop a bit more, let's
go to effects and presets and search for Drop Shadow.
And I'm going to apply this to the first text layer.
Then from effect controls, I'm going to lower the drop shadow opacity
down to 30 percent, and I'll increase the softness to ten to make it more subtle.
And then I'm just going to copy this effect here,
and then I'm going to select the second text layer.
Go back to the effect controls and paste it.
So that way we have a drop shadow on both text layers.
And now let's add some more style to give this text bubble a more unique look.
Let's zoom into the
composition here to get a closer look at what we're working with.
And now we're going to add style to the bubble. Right.
Click on the shape, layer and select layer styles, bevel and EMBOSS,
and then immediately
you'll see that some nice lighting and bubbling was applied to our bubble.
You can play around with a few of these parameters
to widen the bubble or change the lighting, if you like.
But I'm going to leave it as is and just turn on use global light.
And this will allow me to adjust the global light angles here
to get it just right.
And now we can add even more style.
Let's right click on the empty space here in the comp window
and create a new adjustment layer.
Make sure the adjustment layer is on top of all the layers below.
So all of the effects we apply to it will be applied to the layers below
from effects and presets, search for noise
in double click to apply it to the adjustment layer.
While we're here, also search for Gaussian blur
and double click to apply it to the adjustment layer.
Now, from effect
controls, we can increase the noise to see how it affects the clips.
I think around eight percent looks good.
You don't have to have noise on this clip.
I'm only doing it because in the sex education, look,
it had this kind of noisy hologram look.
And so adding this noise
helps get us there to achieve a more textured bubble look that
we can make the text bubble a little fuzzy to match the look of the show .
So from the Gaussian blur
controls, let's increase the blurriness to around four or five.
We don't want to make the text too fuzzy just enough.
Now, you might like this as is, but I want to add one more effect.
Let's go back to effects and presets and search for glow.
This time, I'm going to apply the glow only to the shape layer,
not to the adjustment layer.
So with the glow, I want to add the subtle purple blue haze around the bubble.
So that way it kind of gets that holographic look that you saw in the show.
So first, I'm going to change the glow colors to A and B colors.
And for A, I'm going to choose a dark purple.
And for the B color, I'm going to select a light blue.
Actually, I think I'm going to make the purple color a little bit lighter.
But we can also change this in a moment when we change a few more parameters
to see how it looks.
So first, let's play with the threshold.
I'm going to change this to around 10.
And then for the radius, I'm going to change this to 10.
And then for the intensity all set at two around four.
And then for composite, I'm going to change it to be used on top.
So right now, I think the purple glow outline is a little bit too thick.
So I'm going to reduce the radius down slightly to around eight.
And then I'm going to change the Purple Color to be more of a bluish purple.
So it's more lavender
and it will match the text message bubble a little bit better.
So now when I turn off the effect,
you can see what it look like without the glow.
And then I'll turn it back on and you can see the after.
Now, I think that the glow adds a nice touch.
It makes it more unique.
So now that we're done with this bubble, we can actually duplicate
this bubble comp from the project panel and then open it up.
And you can change the color to green.
You can update the glow colors.
And you can update the text content and change the sizing.
And you can do this as many times as you need
for however many text message bubbles you're going to be animating.
And now, once it's done, you can go on to the animation.
To add animation to the bubbles, select all the layers here inside of the comp
by holding shift and then right click and select
pre compose and let's call this bubble aname one.
Now that it's one layer, we can open up the transform
controls on this pre composed comp.
But first, we need to move
the anchor point to the left bottom corner of the bubble,
so that way it will scale up from the lower left corner.
Kind of like a message.
So when you're doing this, think about where you want it to animate from.
Do you want it to be from the left corner or the right corner?
Because you can move the anchor point to either corner.
That makes sense for the scene that you're working with.
In my case for the scene, it makes sense to move the anchor point
to the lower left.
So once you move the anchor point coordinates to the right place,
next, you can use the aligned panel to get it back in the center.
So then you can move the play head to the moment
you want it to reach the end of the animation.
And you can press the stopwatch next to position and scale
and then move the play head back to where you want it to start.
And then lower the scale down to zero.
Now, it will scale up over time.
If you want to make it faster, you can just click and move the key
frames closer together to make it more of a natural look.
Check the box next to the motion blur column.
And now, as we move the play head between the animation,
you can see that the key frames have a more natural blur.
So now that we have the motion blur
to make the animation between the key frames more smooth,
you're going to select the and key frames right click and select easy ease.
Now, when we play it back, it's just a lot smoother.
So now I'll just quickly repeat the whole animation process
again for the message to bubble.
So now that both of the animations are done,
now, we can composite these bubbles into the video scene
and we can track it to the moving object that we need to track it to.
And do some final tweaks.
So from the project window, let's drag tax bubble
one and tax bubble two into the video player.
We can use the selection tool to reposition them so we can see both
bubbles. Now, before we do some custom animations to align them to the scene,
first, we need to track the bubble to the phone or the hand.
So first, let's go up to layer new
no object and let's press enter to rename the null object to tracker.
This will be what we apply the tracking data to
now with the footage layer selected.
Go to the tracker panel and then select track motion.
This or pull up a track point in the layer window.
And you can click on it and move it to a high contrast area.
In this case, I'm moving it between her thumb and index where there's a crease.
So try to identify a high contrast point in your footage.
That makes sense.
Then hit edit target
and make sure it said to our tracker, null object we just created.
Then we're going to analyze forward.
And depending on your scene, you may also need to go back and analyze backwards.
So once the tracking forward and backing is done, hit, apply,
and now all of the tracking data is on the tracker null object.
And now we need to tell the text bubbles to have the same movement as the tracker.
And this is actually easier than you think.
So go to the parent column next to each text bubble and change it to the tracker.
So after you do that to both text message bubbles.
Now, as you play it back, you'll see that the bubbles are moving
exactly with the girl as she's walking.
And that's all there is to tracking.
If you want to learn how to motion track and put the text message bubble
behind the person that's walking with rotoscoping effects,
you can watch my most recent video up here and you can see how it's done.
So now that we have the scene tracked, what we need to do
is add a few more custom animations to better fit the scene.
So of course, we want that first bubble to pop up
and then as the second bubble pops
up, we want the first bubble to push up.
So we need to make that animation.
And then at the very end, we want them to minimize down into the phone.
So it's like, well, back into the phone.
And so to do that, we also need to do another Prekop and some more animation.
So let me show you how to do that.
The first step is to stagger the text bubble layers
so we can use the selection tool to move a text bubble to over so that way
it appears later on in the composition.
Then we can position text bubble two at the exact same place.
But the issue here is that text bubble one is covering up
bubble two when it animates up.
And this is where we need to animate bubble one up above bubble two.
So let's move the play head right before TEKS bubble two begins to animate.
And then with text bubble one, selected
press key on your keyboard to bring up the position controls.
And then let's select the stopwatch to create our first keyframe.
Then move the play head to wind.
Bubble two is fully up on the frame
and use the selection tool to move bubble one
up to the right above. Bubble two.
So then you can make a few more slope
position adjustments until it looks just right.
Then we can add the motion blur to the motion blur column
to make it look more natural.
And also right click on the key frame and choose easy ease
from the keyframe assistant.
And now we have a smooth upwards push animation.
And finally, we need the close out animation where the text bubble minimizes.
To do that, we're going to select both of the layers
holding shift and then right click and select pre compose.
And let's name this to convo one short for conversation.
So now that we have one recomposed layer, we can animate
both text bubbles together at once to be minimized.
You'll notice as we play it back, the text bubbles
are not tracked to the phone anymore.
And that's because when we made a new prekop,
we also need to change the parent here back to the tracker.
So now we're back on track.
Next, we can use the selection tool to bring the messages back into place.
And we can also press s on this layer to bring the scale controls.
And we can scale the messages down a bit if we want to reskill them together.
And now we need to adjust the anchor point again.
So open up the transform tools here on this prepcom player.
And let's change the anchor point to be where the phone is.
So now it's looking good.
And then we can scrub to the point
where we want it to begin to minimize down into the phone.
And we can press the stopwatch next to the scale parameter
to create our first keyframe
and then move forward a few frames and then bring the scale down to zero.
After I preview it, I want it to better align with the anchor
just a little bit better so I can adjust the point and use
the position controls to move it down to a better location.
And now it's looking a lot better.
And just like before, let's turn on the motion blur.
And also right click on that keyframe to change it to
the easy is in now it minimizes great.
So now I was looking really great.
But there's one last thing that we can do to make a big difference
to create the same effect from the series on this convo. Layer one.
Let's press T for opacity.
And I remember this
because T is like transparency, which is the same thing as opacity.
And then we can lower this down to around 80 percent.
So now the text messages have a more translucent look
and you can see part of the scene behind the bubbles.
And this is completely optional, but I think it looks pretty cool.
And then I added in a few sound effects from Envato elements.
And here is the final result.
OK. So following these steps in this tutorial,
you can now add text message bubbles to any moving scene that you want.
And I hope that after following these steps,
you can start thinking about how you can add technology
to creatively interact with your live action shots.
So just as a reminder, you can download my after effects template
with these text message bubbles for free by becoming a patron.
And you can just use it as a starting point
so you don't have to create the text messages, bubbles from scratch.
You can just drag it onto your footage and then begin tracking and
customizing straightaway.
Now, if you prefer Premiere Pro, I also made a motion graphics template,
Immergut File, that you can import into your central graphics panel
and then drag it on top of your footage and Premiere Pro and make customizations
from the panel, such as updating the text, the color, the size, all of that.
But the one downside of using Premiere Pro is that, you know, tracking
is manually lit.
Really have to key frame frame by frame the position.
So the text messages will follow the subject,
and that's why after effects are so great.
So while I do provide the maggert for Premiere Pro, it's better to use
the after effects template, because you can just go straight into tracking.
And if you're looking for other types, different varieties of different types
of text message templates and Envato elements has a ton.
So, for example, you know, like voice messages or sharing a map.
There's a whole bunch of great toolkits on elements that you can download
and saved your drive to use forever.
And that's what's so cool about elements,
is they have a variety of different styles and packs that you can choose
from, download and use them in any type of video and to store them on your hard
drive for future use. It's pretty cool.
And what's also great, you can get 70 percent off your first month
if you're new. So you can download as much as you want in that first month
and then you can continue on for a whole year.
And the benefit of the annual plans for the elements
is that it's cheaper than doing the month to month option.
So I'm a huge fan of elements and I'm a partner of them.
So I've had my link down below if you guys want to try it out.
Here's my link and it helps support the channel.
So that's all for today's video.
Be sure to give it a big thumbs up if it helps you out.
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yeah, keep creating better video with Gál.
See you next time. Bye.