Text disappears completely....Help!

[robertsdigitald81389881]

Ok guys I am trying to create a text logo with the text tutorial video on youtube below:

After Effects Tutorial 3D Light Text Stroke Effect - YouTube

At about 1.40 on the youtube video this guy types 2.5 for the brush size on the project panel by the left and then he taps his mouse cursor on an empty space beneath that same panel and then he taps the mouse cursor on the empty space on the bottom left panel by the left of the timeline and the colourful aspect of the text within the composition screen switches off revealing only the text's white outlines.

When I try to do the same on the temporary youtube video I uploaded (below), my text disappears completely leaving a black composition screen. How do I get the text with the white outline like his own. If I am able to see my white outlines then it will be possible to see the animation involving those outlines later in the video.

I believe there must be something turned off in my After Effects. What am I doing wrong?

Here is my own video link based on that particular point:

temporary After effects video - YouTube

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

That is a really lousy tutorial. No explanations and the workflow is pretty inefficient. You need to vet your trainers and make sure they know what they are talking about. Google and YouTube searches are turning up a lot more lousy tutorials than good ones and this is a pretty good example of a really poor tutorial. You'll never learn much from just following a step by step demo without any other explanation.

When you have problems, the first thing to do is select the layer that is giving you trouble and press "u" twice to see everything you modified on the layer.  The only thing I see that is obvious is the stroke is only 2.5 pixels wide and your magnification ratio is about 30% and the comp panel resolution is set to auto so the 2.5-pixel stroke is probably not visible at 1/3 resolution. Set Magnification ratio to 100% or make the stroke wider.

[robertsdigitald81389881]

Very helpful thanks

Solved!