Spiraling Out of Control
In our on going mini-series on recreating the Alias intro, we take a quick look at how to get your title to spiral out of control using Adobe After Effects 6.0 and expressions.
In the last two installments we used Hold Keyframes to get letters to appear to type on the screen, and followed that by using Track Mattes to place video inside the resulting title. One of the final elements we need to recreate is the multiple titles spiraling in the background behind our main logo. To do this we’ll use a Null Object to control rotation, and expressions to manipulate the rate of rotation for each of the layers.[an error occurred while processing this directive]Step 1: If you haven’t already, take all of the layers making up your main title and Pre-Compose them into a single comp. For demonstration purposes for this exercise, I will emulate our Pre-Composed layer with a masked solid.Step 2: Duplicate the layer by pressing Command+D on the Mac, or Control+D on the PC. With the duplicate layer selected, press the Enter key on your keyboard and rename the layer to 70%. Now drag the 70% layer below your Title layer.
Step 3: With the 70% layer selected in the Timeline, press the S key on the keyboard to bring up the Scale Property for the layer. Change the amount to 70%.
Step 4: Use the Pan Behind Tool to move the Anchor Point for the layer to just slightly above the final letter of your title.
If you have never used the Pan Behind Tool, you can think of it as a way of moving the Anchor Point and Position of the layer at the same time.
Step 5: Duplicate the 70% layer, move the duplicate below the 70% layer, rename it to 60%, and change the scale to 60%. We duplicated the 70% layer to keep the Anchor Point in the same position.
Source: Digital Media Online, Inc.
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