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David228309536y3q
Participating Frequently
September 2, 2022
Question

How do I distort/skew text in after effects and change it's shape? (example provided)

  • September 2, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 5091 views

 

I want to be able to have one side of the text be smaller than the other (essentially skewing the text) seems like all I should have to do is be able to move each corner of the text so I manually skew it by moving the corners independantly but when you grab a corner and move it all the corners move in unison. It seems so simple compared to the other things I can do with after effects yet somehow I seem stumped.

 

Feels like I'm overthinking it and I already know how to do what I'm having a brain fart. I know how to do it in photoshop but I can't seem to do it in After Effects. Any ideas? I've tried using corner pin effect yet I don't find it that usable for what I'm trying to do

 

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2 replies

Mylenium
Mylenium
Legend
September 2, 2022

Well, you'll have to do some work. There just is no elegant way to handle this automatically. 3D layers require adjustments as does any other alternative technique.  The 3D would likely still be the simplest, you may just need to use an extreme camera with a very short lens to match the exaggerated fake perspective of FPS games. Similarly, expressions could be rigged to allow all sorts of scaling of 3D layers and/ or moving the points of a Corner Pin based on an abstract or calculated distance. You'd track a Null for the target, possibly a second one for the source (muzzle, hand or whatever) and then it all becomes a simple matter of linear(bulletDistance,minDistance,maxDistance, minValue,maxValue). This could then be fancied up with additional controls as you see fit. Providing an exact code snippet would of course require exact info and an actual screenshot of the game you're working on to gauge values and so on. Again, all perfectly doable and not too complicated in terms of Math, but nothing where you can just set up a single layer and go *pew,pew* either.

 

Mylenium

 

    D
    David228309536y3qAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    September 2, 2022

    I'll try and give that a shot, might be a bit unneccsary to go to that extent (I ain't getting paid that much xD) based on what they said they aren't expecting anything too fancy so it doesn't have to be perfect but I'll give it a go. Cheers for the info and help

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Legend
    September 2, 2022

    Corner Pin is way to go as is Mesh Warp, Bezier Warp and whatever you fancy. The only caveat may be that you may have to pre-compose the text to get correct results. Everything else would require a better explanation of what you are actualyl trying to achieve. Just saying that things don't turn out as you expect is no good way of asking for help.

     

    Mylenium

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    David228309536y3qAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    September 2, 2022

    so I'm editing for a steamer, and they want me to annotate/subtitle actions within the gameplay they have provided (like bullets flying over their head in the game they are playing) I want to add a bit of text to each bullet flying over their head to amplify the escalation of the scene. In the bit I am editing, they are being fired at the from where they were looking, so I will be scaling the text down to a small size, adding motion blur to it and scaling up (and also key framing the positioning of it) so it gives the effect of the text flying past the screen and getting closer (until it exits frames) however I want to skew the text so it looks warped slightly to add to the effect which was why I was asking for the effect.

     

    I was wondering if it's possible to skew the text just by moving the corners (like you can in photoshop for example) so it would be easier to annotate each bullet rather than having to skew each bullet differently using various sliders on the effects tab (as the bullets all fly in different directions out of frame and I'll have to skew/warp/corner pin each one differently to the direction it is flying) so using sliders on a corner pin for example might make it very tedious considering there is probably about 50 different annotations.

     

    I can simply turn the text into a 3D object and spin it on it's axis so one side is facing the screen but then I also wanted to skew the other side first so it looks like it's coming from a direction (like the picture I've provided where the laser is smaller from the source but gets larger as it reaches the perspective of the camera)

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