Hey, welcome back to my new video.
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Lately, I got a lot of requests on how to
simulate a 3D extrusion, so, today I decided
to show you the easiest way to create this
effect, for texts, shapes, or any kind of
2D layers, without using any plugin.
Before we start, I'd like to invite you to
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content.
In this tutorial will be using the EZ Tools
script, which is free to download.
You can get it, by clicking the link from
the upper right corner of the screen.
You can also download the project files of
this tutorial clicking the link in the description.
So let's start.
Create a new composition.
I'm using a FULL HD 1080 pixels preset, with
30 frames per second, and 3 seconds long.
Create a new black solid, apply the fill effect
to it, then, will change the fill color to
a shade of blue.
Will use this layer as a background.
For this exemplification, we will use a text
layer, so, select the horizontal type tool,
and type an X.
Center its anchor point, and align it to the
center.
The first step to create 3d extrusion is to
make our layer 3D.
Now, if I change the camera to a top view,
you can see that in the 3D space, our layer
is flat.
To change this, we'll have to create a number
of copies of this layer, and offset them in
the Z axis, this means that each layer will
need to have a consecutive value for the Z
position.
The easiest way to achieve this is using an
expression, so, right click on the position
property, select separate dimensions,
then, alt-click the Z position stopwatch,
and write index in the expression field.
The index represents this number here, which
is the position of the layer in the composition.
This layer is the first one in this comp,
so the position value will be 1.
If will duplicate the layer, the position
value will change to 2,
and so on.
As you can see, now, in the 3D space we have
a nice extrusion.
To see it better I will change the camera
view to a custom view.
You can clearly see the extrusion.
To make it even more realistic, we'll give
it a little shadow on the sides.
An easy way to do this is by using levels,
so search for levels and apply it,
change the output white value to around 215,
create as many copies as you need of your
layer.
For this example I will make 20,
then, on the top and the bottom one, delete
the levels, to come back to the original color
of your layer.
As you can see, now the extrusion looks very
real.
Now, I will show you a way to easily use it.
Select all the extrusion layers, pre-compose
them, and name the new composition extrusion.
We'll have to make the new layer 3D,
but, if we take a closer look, the text is
flat again.
To solve this, you only have to check this
checkbox, which will collapse all the transformations
we've made inside the pre-composition.
if we take a look from the left side, we can
see that the anchor point is now at the top
of the fake 3D Layer, so, open the anchor
point options and change the Z value so that
your anchor point gets in the middle.
Let's open the rotation,
change the camera view back to the active
camera,
create a keyframe on the Y rotation, move
to the last frame and change the revolutions
number to 1.
Select both keyframes and easy ease them,
and let's see how it looks.
We have a very nice 3D extrusion, and it was
quite easy to get it.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on how to
create a 3D extrusion in After Effects without
using any plugins.
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See you soon!
