How to change Warp effect on a text layer to same effect as in Illustrator?

[SUTI]

I have a project of which visual style is based on use of a font. In Illustrator I used the effect "Warp" and then chose the style "Wave" for the font:

In illustrator the effect basically bends the text inside the text box, leaving the top and bottom parts of the text mostly unaffect to bending. Basically the effect only bends the inner part of the text inside the text box.

The problem occurs in After Effects when animating the text and applying the same "warp" effect on it and choosing the style "wave".

 

Compared to Illustrator, After Effect's warp effect bends the text differently, to "outside" of the text box compared to Illustrator's effect:

Is there any solution to have the same effect done in After Effects. Of course there are multiple ways of replicating the effect ( shape layers etc ) but there are multiple versions of text that i have to turn into videos with the same effect, so the "easiest" way would be just to change the text with all the animations ready.

So is there any way to replicate the effect on a text layer in After Effect?

Thanks in advance 🙂

 

[Mylenium]

if you need to replicate it multiple times, create a custom distortion on a pre-composed layer, then simply swap out the contents in the pre-comp. Bezier Warp combined with Mesh Warp sounds like a good solution to replicate AI's "Warp with mesh" functionality, but of course other distortion tools could be used as well and in fact you may need multiple applications of effects, anyway. Just experiemnt around a little with this stuff.

Mylenium

[SUTI]

Thanks! Yeh, I made few fast tries with those effects, although it seemed a bit weird that the "warp" effects ( ones I used ) differ like that between the programs. So, there's more interest towards getting the same effect (and if possible, how) done with the warp rather than tweaking it with other tools. Although there's also time limit with the project so I mostly like will follow up your advice, thank you 🙂 But out of interest towards solving the problem with the warp -effects, I would like to learn if its possible to be done somehow.

[Mylenium]

Nope. The warps in AI (and for that matter Photoshop) use a completely different approach. It would not be technically impossible, but honestly, you're one of perhaps three people that once in a blue moon ask for this, so even if you were to file an official feature request via the Adobe Uservoice page, this would end up very low on the list of priorities. This effectively means it's not going to happen - like in "never".

Mylenium

[Kevin Camp]

I think the issue is that AE sees a text layer as the frame size of the comp while Illustrator sees it as the size of the text.

If you make either the text layer size the same as the comp frame, or the comp frame the same size as the text layer and then apply Wave Warp and set the Pinning property to 'All Edges' you can get a similar result to what you have in Illustrator.

So you can do it in AE, but it will likely involve precomping your text layer.

[Kevin Camp]

You could do it without precomping the text layer and solid with Compound Arithmetic and Wave Warp, but it involves a bit of set up.

Start with your text layer with some sample text.  For Compound Arithmetic to work right, we'll need the text to be positioned in the upper-right corner of the comp.  To make sure it stays there, set the position to 0,0 and then add this expression to it's anchor point:

rect = sourceRectAtTime() ;
[ rect.left, rect.top ]

To make things easier in the next step, change the name of the text layer to MyText.

Now create a 1x1 solid (1px by 1px) and add the Repetile effect and then add this expression to the Left and Right properties:

target = thisComp.layer("MyText") ;
target.sourceRectAtTime().width / 2

And add this one to the Up and Down properties: 

target = thisComp.layer("MyText") ;
target.sourceRectAtTime().width / 2

That should make the solid the same size as the text layer no matter what you type in it.

Now add the Compound Arithemtic effect to the solid and set the Source property to MyText and the Operate On Channels to "ARGB".  Your text should now be composited on the solid layer.

Now add the Wave Warp effect to the soild, set Pinning to "All Edges" and set the other settings as desired and the Wave Warp should be simlar to what you can do in Illustrator.  When you update the text in the text layer, it should update the text on the solid and the size of the solid whild maintaining a consistent Wave Warp with all edges pinned.

[Kevin Camp]

EDIT

Forgot to mention to uncheck the option for "Stretch Second Layer" in the Compound Arithemtc settings ; )

[SUTI]

Thank you for this! Will give it a try, quite interesting!

[SUTI]

It got me pretty far, but didn't have the same effect as with the warp effect ( not to mix it with wave warp just to be sure. ) Also noticed that the expressions are the same, was this the intention or as you explain it, it feels like they should be different. I changed the expression of the direction UP to .height / 2 and it gave me a better result.

Not sure if it is right though and ( most likely due to my lack of skill ) I didn't get the outcome I wanted with the wave warp. But learned few nice tricks! Thanks!