Today we looked at the “per character 3D” feature of After Effects CS3. We wanted to create a page of numbers falling down through a 3D space. CS3 has a new function that enables the use of animating each text character in 3D.
Firstly, we created a page of numbers from 0-9 using the standard cut and paste tool. We then added an animator function to the text to make the numbers change randomly. We did this by adding a “character offset” animator to the layer. We set it to “ramp up” and switched the random order button on. Once we had done this, we switched on the “percharacter 3D” button. This enables the z-position parameter. We keyframed this from -1500 to 0 over a few seconds. This had the effect of the numbers falling from 3D down to 2D.
We then took a picture of Ahmed and took out the background in after effects. We took this image and turned it into a Luma matte for the “numbers” layer This gave the impression of the numbers falling into the shape of Ahmed’s head. We then created a new solid and applied a Ramp effect to it. This added some colour to the animation. Here is the result.
