Happy Turkey Day - Making text rotate around an object

I have a student who is working on her final project. She has a photo of a hand and is making text rotate from behind the finger to the top of the hand. She asked for some help and this is the first method I showed her. I'll post the second in subsequent posts, but for now, I give you, without further ado, "Making text rotate around an object".

This project is very simple to create. I did this the simple way. You could apply a camera, some lights, cast shadows and jazz the whole thing up. And the solid? Well, replace that with a full size turkey with an alpha channel or even a pilgrim.

1. Create your text and move it along a path.
2. Mask off the area that you want to see in front of your obscuring object.
3. Duplicate your text layer.
4. Drag it behind your obscuring object.
5. Switch the mask mode to "subtract" on the layer of text that is behind your obscuring object.

To add a tich of realism I've blurred the bottom text layer slightly, to simulate depth of field. Remember, these are not 3D layers and you can not technically move your text into deeper areas in a path, so this is a compromise. I've also colored the text a slightly grayer shade of white to make it look a bit shadowier. Yes, I'm making up words now. It's a talent that I picked up from my 3 year old.

Download circulartext.aep.zip (AE 7 Standard or Pro)

View sample movie

posted by Michele Yamazaki @ 11/22/2006 02:32:00 PM |