13
The Obsolete Effects
In After Effects CS4, a new effects category was created called Obsolete. Several old effects that are considered outdated were dumped in this desolate wasteland of an effects category. How can you recover from such a social stigma?
While the Obsolete effects may not be invited to the other effects’ Christmas party, they might still serve a purpose. We’ll cover them briefly in this chapter, just to be complete in covering every effect. But that doesn’t mean that they’re worthless. For most professionals, there are much better choices out there to accomplish everything that these Obsolete effects do. But if you find certain aspects of After Effects intimidating (such as the often daunting text animation engine), then you might actually find some help in the ghetto of After Effects’ Obsolete effects.
The Basic 3D Effect
The Basic 3D effect (formerly in the Perspective category) was created before layers could exist in 3D space. It is used to simulate 3D motion. If you’d like to follow along, open the Basic 3D.aep project in the Chapter 13 folder, and apply the Basic 3D effect to the solid layer in the Grid comp. This solid contains only the Grid effect. Adjust the Swivel property to simulate rotation around the Y axis.
Figure 13.1
After adjusting the Swivel property with the Basic 3D effect.
Similarly, the Tilt value is the equivalent of X Rotation, and the Distance to Image property controls Z position. There are also a couple of other properties to fake what happens in 3D. Show Specular Highlight adds a tiny glint of light (that you can’t control), and Draw Preview Wireframe shows a wireframe outline of the layer when the layer is in Draft quality.
While some of the effects in this category can still be helpful to new users because of their simplicity, the Basic 3D effect deserved its demotion in my opinion. It’s just as easy to convert a 2D layer to a 3D layer in the Timeline panel, and use the 3D features there.
The Basic Text Effect
Another Obsolete effect with “basic” in its title—this can’t be good. Actually, the Basic Text effect can be beneficial to those that find simple text animation in After Effects to be challenging. In the same way that Basic 3D was the only way to create 3D movement many moons ago, Basic Text used to be the only way to create text in After Effects.
Create a new project, a new comp, and a new solid. Unlike real After Effects text, Basic Text is an effect which must be applied to an existing layer. Though this can be of benefit in certain circumstances (such as when creating a luminance map to control an effect, and you want text to be a part of the map and you don’t want to precompose), more often than not I like my text to be an independent layer. That way, I’ll have access to blend modes, individual animation parameters, and more.
When you first apply the Basic Text effect, as well as many other effects in After Effects that deal with text, you are created with an archaic dialog box. This thing should be on display in a museum somewhere.
All joking aside (for the time being), in this dialog box, you enter your text in the large empty field in the area in the middle. Here you can also change the font, style, and alignment. To accept the text and adjust the effect, click OK. And after a while, you’ll realize one of the biggest reasons that this effect is obsolete—you can only change this text by clicking the Edit Text … hot text button at the top of the Basic Text effect in the Effect Controls panel.
In the parameters of this effect, you’ll find the most basic of basic properties, such as position, color, fill, stroke, and size.
Figure 13.2
The old text entry dialog box, circa late 1990’s, still seen in many text effects today. Conservation efforts are needed, as these dialog boxes are near extinction.
So why would you ever want to use this effect? I can only think of one reason. If you want to animate the tracking of a word (the horizontal spacing between all characters), it is a little easier to do with the Basic Text effect than it is with the powerful and complex text animation engine in After Effects. Of course, if you know what you’re doing, then the text animation engine will yield much better results because of its amount of controls. But this might be good if you’re just getting started.
The Lightning Effect
The Lightning effect creates lightning, as does the Advanced Lightning effect. One of the big differences between them is that Lightning auto-animates, and Advanced Lightning must be animated manually. Another big difference is in the quality of the lightning (the Advanced Lightning effect produces much better results). And the Advanced Lightning effect allows you to use the alpha channel with the lightning it creates. Figure 13.3 shows both types of lightning at their default values.
Figure 13.3
The quality of Lightning (on the left) is significantly different than that of Advanced Lightning (on the right).
Obviously the quality of the Advanced Lightning effect is far superior to the Lightning effect when going for realistic lightning. But what if you’re going for something else? What about a quick spark? Lightning may be able to get a suitable job done faster, depending on the type of spark you’re looking for.
I also like that the Lightning effect animates so wildly. In the Lightning.aep project you’ll find in the Chapter 13 folder, I’ve fiddled around a bit with the Lightning effect. And by now, you’ve probably guessed that I just love coming up with interesting artistic patterns. So, I’ll briefly give you the gist of what I did to come up with the image shown in Figure 13.4.
Figure 13.4
This is what happens when you cross too much free time with the Lightning effect.
I started with the Lightning effect and a solid background with a simple radial gradient. In the Lightning effect, I took down the Width and Core Width settings to their minimal values to shrink the lightning. I increase the Segments and Amplitude values to create lines that look more like graffiti than lightning. I duplicated the Lightning effect three times. And moved their Start Point and End Point positions to cover the screen.
Figure 13.5
The lightning project thus far.
I then added a CC Radial Fast Blur effect, followed by a Glow. I really liked the silky texture I got with this. It kind of reminded me of those ribbons of mineral deposits you see in rocks in Las Vegas gift shops.
Figure 13.6
The lightning after CC Radial Fast Blur and Glow.
My beef with the result now is that it is too subtle. It appears faded and washed out. So, to achieve the final result seen in Figure 13.4, I added an adjustment layer, and added a Levels effect, a Curves effect, and a Color Balance effect. These helped to punch the contrast and color.
Even though this looks soft and pretty, the animation built into the Lightning effect will make this jagged and wild. We can smooth it out a little bit by taking down the Speed value, and increasing the Stability value. But those properties only allow you a minimal amount of control. Which brings us to the final point about this effect—in most cases, it’s better to use Advanced Lightning (in the Generate category).
The Path Text Effect
Like Basic Text, the Path Text effect used to be in the Text category. Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about this effect being labeled as obsolete. This is without question the best of the Obsolete effects, and if text animation in After Effects intimidates you, the Path Text effect can be a great asset. It’s almost like the Path Text effect is the Cliff Notes version of the entire text animation engine, with additional built-in path tools.
When you first apply the effect (again to a layer, like a solid, because it is an effect), you are greeted with a watered down version of the Edit Text dialog box we saw with Basic Text. And, as with Basic Text, you also can only edit text in the Path Text effect by clicking the same Edit Text button at the top of this effect in the Effect Controls panel.
However, after entering text and clicking OK, we quickly see how powerful this effect can be, just by the sheer volume of parameters here. Also, in the Composition panel, we notice that the Path Text has also created a bezier path for our text to exist on. The path also has nice big circles around the anchor points as well as the handles, which are also effect control points.
Figure 13.7
The Path Text effect creates its own path automatically.
In the Path Options area, you can change the Shape Type value to a circle or a straight line. Or you can use the Custom Path value in this area to choose a mask that you’ve created on the layer you’ve applied the Path Text effect to.
Creating Text on a Path
If you want to create text on a path with the regular text animation engine in After Effects, create a mask on your text layer, and then under Text>Path Options>Path, choose the name of the mask from the Path drop down list. Your text will instantly snap to the shape of the path.
The next several options are fairly self-explanatory, so I’m going to skip down to the Paragraph properties. With the default settings, the Left Margin property determines how many pixels away from the left edge of the path that the text is. Baseline Shift allows you to increase the number of pixels that the text rises up from the baseline (the imaginary line that text sits on).
Figure 13.8
Increasing the Left Margin value moves the text to the right, and increasing the Baseline Shift value raises it up from the path.
Open up the Advanced area to really start having some fun with this effect. At the top of this area is the Visible Characters property. This is exactly what it sounds like—it determines how many characters are visible. The default value is a rather high 1024. If I take this value to something like two, then only two of my characters are visible. This is kind of like a really weak version of the Range Selectors found on text layers. You can use this property to animated text appearing, one character at a time.
Finally, we come to the Jitter Settings area. In the world of After Effects, two of my favorite words are jitter and wiggle.
Figure 13.9
My Path Text with the Visible Characters property at a value of 2.
Both words are usually synonyms for randomness, which is a great thing in my book. Jitter (as in the case with Card Wipe and others) can also have the added meaning that it won’t wiggle until adjusted. So, if you were to play your composition with this effect at its default settings, there wouldn’t be any animation. But if you adjust any of the jitter properties here, they will auto-animate. The number you input for jitter determines the range of how much jittered values are allowed to randomize.
- Baseline Jitter Max—randomizes baseline shift for each character. This is like making all the characters jump up and down independently.
- Kerning Jitter Max—randomizes the kerning of all characters (tracking). Use this to randomize the space between characters, as if your text was caught in a big texty mosh pit.
- Rotation Jitter Max—randomizes rotation for each character. Note that each character rotates around the layer’s anchor point. This is another big advantage of text layer animation— each character can rotate around its own anchor point. Such is not the case here.
- Scale Jitter Max—randomizes the size of each character. As with rotation, the characters scale out from the layer’s anchor point.
Figure 13.10 shows my final result with this effect after changing the font, the shape of the path, the Paragraph properties, and the Jitter Settings properties.
Figure 13.10
After adjusting the jitter values and other properties, my text has a life of its own. And all of this animates without any keyframing!
Look folks, at the end of the day, we all know that the animation on text layers offers far more control and power than anything we could do with the Path Text effect. But many times, we just want to do something very quickly and text layer animation is just too much work. When using text layer animation for simple jobs I feel like I’m powering up a desktop computer to use its calculator to add up my pocket change. It’s just a lot more than I need. If you’re just trying to create a simple bouncy, random animation with simple text, or if you want it to wrap around an arc that is already created for you, the Path Text effect may not be quite so obsolete after all.