Publishing System Settings Logout Login Register
How to Create a Simple, yet Elegant Title Screen for your Production
TutorialCommentsThe AuthorReport Tutorial
Tutorial Avatar
Rating
Add to Favorites
Posted on June 1st, 2007
56271 views
Adobe After Effects
Hey everyone!! It's Bug here ready to write his FIRST TUTORIAL ever! That's right, guys - I'm finally contributing to what people contributed for me. Hopefully I'll be making more of these as I go along.



     Wow!! What an amazingly wonderful and powerful program! There's just so much potential that probably over half of the video world doesn't even know about! But that's why I'm here :) To create some simple tutorial that the average user can follow - so, let's get onto it, shall we?

_____________________________________________________________________________________



  • Page 2: Creating the Background and Gradient for it
  •   
  • Page 3: The Moving Bars & the text
  •   
  • Page 4: The Particle Effect

_____________________________________________________________________________________



I recently had to make a Seminar for Human Rights (and spent quite a bit of time on it, too). I had a quick title screen at the start of it, which made it look even cooler ;)

_____________________________________



This is an example of what we'll be making.

------------------------
File Download: Example (.mov)
------------------------

When I exported this version, I forgot to turn the quality up a notch, so excuse that =D

Pretty cool, eh? I thought so! XD Once you've done this tutorial you should be able to expand on it and make it look even cooler!!

_____________________________________

What you'll need:
-------------------------------
  • Adobe After Effects 7 (or a version with CC Particle World)
  •   
  • Adobe Photoshop or other .PNG/.PSD compitable program
  •   
  • Patience :P
  •   
  • File Download: Gradient -- We will be using this file further down the track. Making your own instead is also an option.


Create a new Composition and set the time length to 15 seconds, give or take





This gives us enough space to move around... you can shorten the length of the movie clip later before exporting if you need to. You don't want your intro title screen to be too long :P
All the other settings are really up to you to decide on - screen size, PAL/NTSC etc.
_____________________________________________________________________________________




Create a New White Solid - Use the following settings:




Scale -- this is set to 8% to get us a thin, long horizontal bar. You may have to unlink the horizontal and vertical attributes.
The Anchor Point and Position -- with these you just need to make sure that the solid is in the middle.





_____________________________________________________________________________________




Cover the Solid with a Gradient:


In this step we'll need File Download: Gradient -- This is the .PSD file that holds the gradient that we want to use.

So, import the gradient file into AE. The layer options don't matter as much, as the .PSD only has one layer in it. Bring it onto the screen, but make sure that that layer is on top of the solid. It is important to make sure that there are no seeps of the solid getting past on the top or bottom.

If you feel that you're up to it, pop into a transparency-enabled graphics editor (such as photoshop, fireworks, etc.) and make your own one that suites your taste. Have a transparent background and create a black to transparent bar. Make sure it is BLACK on the top and bottom, so that you have no hitches when trying to make it look nice in AE.







Time to create the moving bars:


Create two more white solids. These two are to be placed in between your gradient and your thin, horizontal bar. Change the settings to...







_____________________________________________________________________________________




Make the moving bars MOVE:


Now we've made the moving bars look nice, it's time to animate them. This is the time when you can go as WILD AND CRAZY as your heart desires... but let's not try and make it look too overdone.

All you have to do here is simple; place as many Position keyframes along your timeline as you want for your two white solids. When you place these keyframes on there, change the horizontal position to whatever you want... but try not to make the bars go the same way at the same speed at the same time.

Here's what my timeline looks like - mind you, you can't see what position each keyframe is set to




_____________________________________________________________________________________




Make the text:
This is a really simple step, and doesn't require a lot. You can put in here whatever text settings you want. The ones I used are as follows:




Place the text on top of everything else as follows






PARTICLE EFFECT: Create a New Solid
Now it's time to put the cream (or the icing) on the cake :) Please give a big round of applause to 'CC Particle World'
That's right!! This baby is awesome for anyone who might not have the Particular Trapcode effect. Very useful and very awesome looking stuff! Right, let's get into it.

1. So, create a new black solid & how about we name it Bubbles
2. Place the layer between the text layer and the gradient -- so it should be second from the top.
3. Goto Effect >> Cycore >> CC Particle World (make sure you have the black solid selected.)
4. Follow these settings. NOTE: I didn't use any keyframes for my clip, but if you feel that you're up to it, then go ahead :)










Well, there you go - your very own Title Screen for your future Productions

One thing you could do, if you don't like the bubbles being too crisp, is to apply a Gaussian Blur to the Particle layer and set the blur to 1 (or lower), just to give it that nice 'not sticking out too much' feel.

Hope you enjoyed my tutorial as much as I did XD
If you should have any questions, please feel free to post them in the comments section (link at top of screen under the Star Ratings) or PM me :)

The reason I wrote this tutorial was because I felt that there wasn't enough After Effects tutorials submitted on the P2L Engine. AE is a growing passion in my life, as I figure out interesting new methods of doing cool and eye-pleasing things. So, this will definitely not be the last After Effects Tutorial from me.

In the future, I may even write up some After Effects with Premiere tutorials :) But that's yet to be decided.

Have an awesome week!!
Dig this tutorial?
Thank the author by sending him a few P2L credits!

Send
Bug

This dude (namely me lol) is an awesome machine when it comes to Adobe After Effects and Premiere... expect some sweet tutorials from these categories :)
View Full Profile Add as Friend Send PM
Pixel2Life Home Advanced Search Search Tutorial Index Publish Tutorials Community Forums Web Hosting P2L On Facebook P2L On Twitter P2L Feeds Tutorial Index Publish Tutorials Community Forums Web Hosting P2L On Facebook P2L On Twitter P2L Feeds Pixel2life Homepage Submit a Tutorial Publish a Tutorial Join our Forums P2L Marketplace Advertise on P2L P2L Website Hosting Help and FAQ Topsites Link Exchange P2L RSS Feeds P2L Sitemap Contact Us Privacy Statement Legal P2L Facebook Fanpage Follow us on Twitter P2L Studios Portal P2L Website Hosting Back to Top