Task 01: Animating 2D text in After Effects
Creating text in After Effects
Scaling Text
Experimenting with font and colour
Experimenting with outlines and scaling
Further experimentation of text tools
Experimenting with opacity
Browsing animation presets
Applying a preset
Experimenting with the snowfall effect
Creating animation 1 and adding audio for task 3
Following a tutorial to create a warping text animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvTXbHLtod4
Creating video 3 using presets, effects, and sound
Following a tutorial to create a wavy text animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dpMeh8a–g
Further experimentation with presets and synchronising audio
Task 02: Animating 3D text in After Effects
Using After Effects to create 3D text with lighting
Arranging two coloured point lights
Experimenting with bevelling the text
Experimenting with the 3D camera
Creating a solid to use as a background
Applying animation presets
Experimenting with the mosaic effect using an adjustment layer
Further experimentation with the block load effect
Experimenting with glow
Adding the find edges effect
Finalising the animation with lens flare and animating its position to synchronise with the animation
Following a tutorial to create a pop-in effect and adding synchronised sound on my own
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtlolzbqHlY
Experimenting with animating the light source and synchronising audio
Further experimentation with sound, animation, and effects
Following tutorial and adding my own effects and sound after
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w34hnD57u5Y
Reflection
Going into this course, I had no experience using After Effects. However, after completing the three tasks, I feel much more comfortable with both 2D and 3D motion graphic design. Learning the basics of text animation was interesting and not as difficult as I initially expected. I do think I relied too heavily on animation presets rather than creating my own animations, which limited my creativity and reduced the amount of meaningful experimentation. With my 2D animations, I believe I could have taken more creative risks. However, I feel I pushed myself much further creatively in the 3D animations.
When searching for sound effects, I found some that were unexpected but worked surprisingly well once I synchronised the animations to them. This taught me that sound effects don’t necessarily need to match the visual content literally, as long as the timing and rhythm are well aligned. Following YouTube tutorials was also very helpful, and I learned a lot from them. One key takeaway was the importance of easing animations. Using the graph editor to ease motion in and out gave my animations a stronger sense of weight and realism. However, I believe that I could have done more research to better inform my design decisions, and this aspect of my work was relatively weak.
My time management also needs improvement. Not having access to After Effects at home meant I had to work in the university computer labs. Knowing this however, I still didn’t allocate enough time to complete the tasks efficiently. In the future, I will work harder to manage my schedule and ensure I set aside dedicated time for assessments like this.
Overall, completing these tasks has taught me a great deal about 2D and 3D motion graphic design, and I look forward to developing my skills further in the future.