I need to 3d extrude text that is animating on via the range selector. This is impossible?

[threeheadedhotdog]

Hello!

Longtime VFX guy here, but I rarely use AE so I could use some help. 

I need to 3d extrude text that is animating on via the range selector. But when I convert the text layer to a 3D layer it seems to completely ignore the range selector animate on function. Why is this? Can it not do this?

I see that the 3d text layer DOES inherit the color value of the source text, so I tried changing it to "no fill" (does that mean zero alpha?) but...

Once this is a 3d layer, I can range select the colors of the extruded 3d text to animate on, but the whole text is still THERE as an alpha channel that is red(?) for some reason. It even renders like that?

So many questions. Why is the alpha channel premultiplied as red for some reason? And why is it even there if the range selector is at zero?

I hope that this is not the way to go about achieving this effect and that there is a more After Effectsy way to do something simple like this. 

It's just animating on extruded text! 

Thank you for your time and wisdom AE Folks! This program makes no sense to me!  Please help!

[threeheadedhotdog]

EDIT. 

I found it. It was the OPACITY animate function. 

I'm used to opacity just being a function of the alpha value, which is you know, included in any color function., like the color range utility.

NEVERMIND. 

NEVERMNID.

[threeheadedhotdog]

STILL WONDERING why a zero alpha channel is rendering premultiplied as red, tho.