Auto Resizing Dynamic Lower Thirds in After Effects | Tutorial

In this After Effects Tutorial, I’ll show you how to create an auto resizing,
dynamic lower third! With an optional fixed height!
► Check out the 750+ Motion Graphics Advanced Pack: bit.ly/sonduckfilm-mgap
► Get your Freebie Pack here: bit.ly/sonduckfilm-freebie
► Download the project file here: gumroad.com/manueldoesmotion
Content:
0:00 Intro
0:30 Setting up the text and expression controllers
1:21 The layer control
1:28 Height and width expressions
2:09 The overall size of the shape
2:39 Adding the shape layer
3:10 Centred anchor points
3:55 750+ Motion Graphics Elements
4:40 Animating the lower third
5:13 Fixed Height
6:20 Alight the lower third to the left
7:59 Outro
► School of Motion: Anchor point expressions in After Effects
www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/a...
Some of these links are affiliate links. By purchasing through this link I earn some money at NO extra cost to you. It’s a Great way to support my channel! Thanks!
► Software: Adobe After Effects 18.4 (I use the "Default" Workspace in my tutorials)
► I use music from @artlist: artlist.io
► I use footage from @artgrid: artgrid.io
If you have any further questions, let me know in the comments below. I do my best to answer all of them!
► Subscribe to my channel here:
/ @manueldoesmotion
I am very curious how this tutorial inspired your work!
Put the link in the comments below or even better: tag me on Instagram.
► @manueldoesmotion
► / manueldoesmotion
► my website: www.manueldoesmotion.com
► behance: www.behance.net/stein-hauser
#aftereffectstutorial #animation #motiondesign

[@AndrewMarston]

This is super practical. Thanks for sharing. And congrats on almost 20k subs! Not long before I'm saying "Almost 100k subs!"

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You're welcome! Glad it's useful! Almost all lower thirds for my client projects are done like that. I think I'll hit 20k subs sometime in December. Almost 100k? In the next two years maybe... Who knows ;-))

[@bladinier]

Thank you Manuel! This is exactly what i was looking for!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

That’s awesome! You’re so welcome!

[@grinnlock]

Another awesome tutorial Manuel !!!!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thank you so much! Glad u like it!

[@mrfenandes]

I like these more "advanced" tutorials, there's plenty of beginner tutorials out there. People love a good old moan don't they. Love your stuff, and I'll always appreciate them, keep it up!!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

That’s great to hear! Thanks very much!

[@eduardobispo4705]

Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You’re very welcome!

[@David.Sotelo]

This is very helpful, thank you so much!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You're welcome! So happy it is helpful!

[@dancu9271]

a lot of thanks for making and sharing your video!!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You are very welcome!

[@Walks-Drives]

This video deserves at least 25k likes for 25k views! It's soooo good!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thanks so much!!! That’s great to hear!

[@faithfulnessdonatus8682]

Awesome tutorial, Please what if I want to align my anchor point of the shape to the right. Do I replace the words 'left' to right in sourceRecAtTine expression code>

[@ManueldoesMotion]

In this video I explain how to pin anchor points: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y4GnaH57naqfqa8

Gracias Manuel!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You're welcome!

[@Boznahto]

Nice, thanks a lot

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Glad u like it!

[@Kaganda.I.S]

Great video.thanks

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@user-zt9qv4cs5o]

Love your content, man. Question: could you do the same with this expression on the size of the shape layer: s = thisComp.layer ("name"); x = s.sourceRectAtTime (time - s.inPoint, true) .width; y= s.sourceRectAtTime (time - s.inPoint, true) .height; [x, y] and this expression on the position: content("Rectangle 1").content("Rectangle Path 1").size/2 or would it be different? I

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Hey thanks! Have you tried it? I'll check it out.

[@digitalmole8236]

Great video. How would you create this auto resizing rig for alphabets that use diacritics/accents (àêïōû)? The text shifts on the y axis as soon as you add characters with accents or punctuation (; ,). Thanks

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thanks! In this case you have to use a fixed height, like in the second example. Then the text doesn't shift.

[@Armada_Sifu]

thank you so much

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You are very welcome!✌🏻😊

[@nathitappan]

Thanks for the great tutorial as usual Manuel! Quick question: how would you go about it if you wanted to make two lines of text and resize the font to make sure both lines are always the same width? LINE1 LINE2 But if we changed the content of LINE 1, the font size would follow suit? In the eg bellow "NEWLINE1" would scale down, or "LINE2" would scale up. NEWLINE1 LINE2 I can do it by matching the layer size of two different text layers with sourceRectAtTime, and connect their positions with expressions. But I'm trying to reduce the amount of layers in this particular project, so hopefully there's a clever way to do it with some lines of code inside the same text layer! Does that make sense? Any insight is appreciated!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Hi Nathalia, I don't think you can do the animated part easily with expressions. You can resize the text so that it has the same width. I just found a tutorial that explains it really well: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fKG5gZSYj9xmrLc

[@nathitappan]

Yeah, I figured out how to resize the text but not in one single layer. I end up with one master and two others where I break down both lines then use SourceRectAtTime. Thanks for getting back to me! And thanks for referring that tutorial, super helpful!

[@dancu9271]

I was going to ask you how can I learn to animate wiht expresions; but I just see that you have a course in your web page about it, obviously I will buy it!!!!!!!! your work and teaching is awesome!!!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thanks so much that’s great to hear! There is also a free expressions sheet for you to start.

[@TrekkingPals2]

As a thought, sourceRectAtTime takes arguments, the first of which is the frame number. You could use a protected region (intro) and then just provide the fixed height as the height of the text at the final frame of the protected region in the animation.

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thanks very much for sharing! That's interesting! I'll do some research on it and check it out!

[@TrekkingPals2]

@Tamar Bender When you're editing a composition, go to the 'Composition' menu at the top-bar, then select "Responsive Design --- Time > Create Intro". You'll see a blue area with weird looking markers on your composition. You can resize this region and it will represent "unchangeable" portions of your composition for the downstream consumer. As an example, you could enforce that your intro always takes 2 seconds and your outro always takes 2 second (4 seconds of protected regions), but make your composition 5 seconds long with an unprotected center region. Then, when somebody consumes your composition (MOGRT / Master Properties), they can resize the layer existence and the first 2 seconds will always be your intro, the last 2 will always be your outro, and then can make the composition sit idle for as long as they want in the middle. In this case, if we made a protected intro, it would indicate that all of the text should be shown and stable by that point, you could then just use the sourceRectAtTime method to calculate the text height from that final position at all times rather than always doing an 'in-the-moment' calculation. It seems like it would be a more "complete" solution, but the end result would be functionally the same as what was presented. There are even other methods you can find that convert time in seconds to frames, so that you don't have to worry about hard-coding a frame if your have a 60 FPS / 30 FPS suite of tools you use this with, and other methods still would provide you with the location of the protected region start/end. Dig as deep as you'd like, there's always more to figure out with this stuff. Good luck!

[@wesleyallenteodoro]

Hello, awesome video btw. Helped me a lot! Question: How to do this effect with a two line text box? For example: i want to type a line, hit enter e continue at the second line. I need to type a big text but the box can't let me do it. Can you help me?

[@ManueldoesMotion]

The box should adjust to the amount of text no matter how many lines there are. You want the box to have the final size from the beginning on?

[@Englishforbuddies]

Thanks, Im looking out something similar but for FCP. do you happen to know any way or know anything that could help me? I would appreciate a lot! thanks again

[@ManueldoesMotion]

I think you can export it as essential graphic and use it as a template in premiere pro.

[@S_fx7]

You take the height data from the text layer and then add it to the slider control, then add width plus edge to get the actual size. Can you clarify how to get the height data from the text layer?

[@ManueldoesMotion]

The layer control determines from which layer to get the data. And "t.sourceRectAtTime().height" reads out the actual height of the text layer.

[@captainjacksparrow947]

thanks for the great video, wondering how can I can the animation go from left to right instead of right to left. Other words, right align the text?

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You would have to pin the anchor points to the right edge of the layers.

[@MARKETDIRECTCAMPERS]

@@ManueldoesMotion do you have to change the expression of the shape layer anchor point to be right instead of left? When I try to do this it gives me an Undefined expression error.

[@ryanhood707]

Is it possible to do this for 2 line lower thirds? I need to have a name and below it extra info. Duplicating the layers doesn't work

[@ManueldoesMotion]

The easiest way to do it is to use one text layer for both lines. Select the second line to change its color and size. If you add a second text layer you have to write an if/else conditional statement to choose the line with the higher width value.

[@ManueldoesMotion]

►Save time and produce awesome animations with the Motion Graphics Advanced Pack: bit.ly/sonduckfilm-mgap ► Get your FREE “42 Free Template Pack” for After Effects: bit.ly/sonduckfilm-freebie

[@sheep178china]

Do I have to learn javascript for this kind of expression? I respect you so much! (I'm a Korean subscriber)^^)

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Hi! ✌🏻 I don’t think you have to learn JavaScript. You can find a lot of expressions online, you might have to change a few little things, but mostly they work.

[@JulianaMartins-xj1cu]

this all makes sense, but how do you do this when you have rounded corners? Can't use scale in this case. How would do it?

[@ManueldoesMotion]

I either would animate the rounded corners together with the scale property or rather animate the opacity and / or position property.

[@Snuzifer]

Hallo Manuel. Ich bin vor kurzem auf deinen Kanal gestoßen. Erst einmal danke für die super genialen Videos. Mein Englisch ist gut genug um deinen Anweisungen (wenn ich es mal so sagen kann xD) zu Folgen, aber kannst du vielleicht auch Tutorials in deutsch machen? Ich muss leider öfters die Begriffe googlen da sie in deutsch anders heißen -.- LG Sven

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Hi! Freut mich dass sie dir gefallen! Ich habe irgendwann angefangen die englische AE Version zu verwenden weil es einfacher ist. Es gibt wenige deutsche Tutorials. Vielleicht starte ich irgendwann einen deutschen Tutorial Channel. Aber im Moment bleibe ich erstmal bei Englisch;)

[@timgiddy]

How can this be done with mattes? Let's say I want to reveal text from a matte but if I change the text or the font, the matte cuts off the text. How can I fit a matte over any text?

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You create a shape layer and use it as matte. Add the sourceRecAtTine expression.

[@lottevanzelst6555]

When I ad the t=effect to the height control in the effects of 'CONTROLS' it gives an error: property or method named 't' in Class 'Global' is missing or does not exist. Same for the width. When I finish this code, the height doesn't change. I work in AE 2023. Do you maybe know whats wrong and how I can fix it?

[@lottevanzelst6555]

When I change to javascript, the [t.sourceRetAtTime().width] gives an error.

[@ManueldoesMotion]

It seems like you didn't add a semicolon at the end of the first line.

[@carolpedro3376]

Your shape layer seems to completely disappears when you have 0 characters showing, while on mine you can always see the padding border I left around the text (the edge values), even when there is no character on screen, due to the animation on its starting point (frame #0). Do you know why? What am I doing wrong?

[@ManueldoesMotion]

I probably moved the start point of the layer to the first keyframe. So that it appears like that.

[@jawbee7]

👏👏👏

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thanks very much! ✌🏻

[@delueks]

Ich habe das Tutorial befolgt aber leider hat es nicht funktioniert. Dann habe ich die Projekt Dateien gekauft und es funktioniert immer noch nicht (3 Expression Fehler). Benutze die neuste After Effets Version.

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Benutzt du die deutsche Ae Version? Die expressions werden nicht automatisch übersetzt. Slider Control in der englischen Expression wird nicht automatisch zu Schieberegler. Das muss man von Hand ersetzen. Wie sind denn die Fehlermeldungen?

[@delueks]

@@ManueldoesMotion Okay ich hab's hingekriegt, danke. Weiß du wie ich links neben dem Text noch ein kleines Icon einfügen kann, wo die Shape Ebene sich dran anpasst?

[@screenpresentation]

It's a blind follow tutorial. nothing to learn as a begginer

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Yes, you should have some knowledge about expressions. If you want to start: bit.ly/expressions-cheat-sheet

[@aaronlobo3896]

Please, talk even faster next time

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Sure

[@adamsoyer]

Another tutorial of this type and again what is important to me is left out. What about the export? To what file should this ultimately go? How do I make lower-thirds of it which I will send to myself and be able to use on another computer? Why is there no way to make a mogrt from this? At the point where this video ends, without an export file it is useless in the future anyway.

[@ManueldoesMotion]

There are tons of tutorials that cover how to create morgrt files. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5rMeJx9qauoircsi=4w4BKSQEgabte0Q5

[@adamsoyer]

@@ManueldoesMotion Yes, but..: - I like your videos - I really liked this tutorial and suddenly I ended up in a place I didn't expect :) I felt abandoned :) P.S. By the way. As we know, mogrt works great with Premiere and anyone who is "Adobe family" will be able to use it easily. But what if, for example, some people in my team use Final Cut Pro? Is it possible to convert the same/exactly the same looking AE project and make an export that people from the "Final Cut family" could also use?

[@ManueldoesMotion]

@@adamsoyer I don't know of a way to use morgrt files in Final Cut. You would have to render out mov Files with an integrated alpha channel and use them as movie clips.