Set the text face fill

  1. In the Layers list, select the 'SUPER' text object and view the Text->Style tab in the Inspector.
  2. Set the Face Fill With to 'Gradient'.
  3. Set the gradient so that it has three (3) color tags, with the following settings:
    • Tag 1: RGB = (0.68, 0.41, 0.03), Location = 0%
    • Tag 2: RGB = (1.00, 1.00, 0.46), Location = 50%
    • Tag 3: RGB = (0.60, 0.40, 0.00), Location = 100%

Already, our text looks much better:

While you're welcome to get off the ride whenever you get a result you like, in this tutorial we're shooting for a more natural look, so let's grunge up our text a bit.

Set the text outline

  1. In the Layers list, select the 'SUPER' text object and view the Text->Style tab in the Inspector.
  2. Enable the 'Outline' checkbox.
  3. Set the Outline Fill With to 'Gradient'.
  4. Set the gradient so that it has three (3) color tags, with the settings as follows:
    • Tag 1: RGB = (0.33, 0.17, 0.00), Location = 0%
    • Tag 2: RGB = (0.87, 0.85, 0.39), Location = 50%
    • Tag 3: RGB = (0.28, 0.14, 0.00), Location = 100%
  5. Set the Outline Width to 7.
  6. Set the Face Blur to 4.

And that's that for our text. Thickening the outline and then blurring the face into it gives the text a soft darkening around the edges. Our next step is to make it look as though the glow from the background is bleeding around the edge of the text. We'll accomplish this by masking and comping a copy of the background over the text.

Duplicate the background

  1. In the Layers list, select the 'Background' layer object.
  2. Select Edit->Duplicate from the menu or press 'Cmd+D' to duplicate the layer.
  3. Rename the duplicate layer to 'Glow' and move it to the top of the Layers list, above the 'Text' layer.
  4. In the Properties tab of the Inspector, set the Blending->Opacity of the 'Glow' layer to 75%.

To cut a hole in the 'Glow' layer, we'll use a mask. Rather than drawing a shape mask by hand, we'll use an Image Mask. An Image Mask uses one image to mask off another. In this case, we'll use the text image to cut a hole in the Gradient generator inside the 'Glow' layer.

Add the Image Mask

  1. In the Layers list, open the 'Glow' layer and select the Gradient generator inside it.
  2. Select Object->Add Image Mask from the menu or press 'Cmd+Shift+M' to add the mask.
  3. While viewing the Image Mask tab in the Inspector, drag the 'Text' layer from the Layers list and drop it into the Image image well.
  4. In the Layers list re-enable the visibility checkbox for the 'Text' layer.
  5. In the Image Mask tab of the Inspector, enable the Invert Mask checkbox.

If you're wondering why you had to turn the 'Text' layer back on, it's because connecting an image to an Image Mask disables the image by default (you typically don't want the source for the mask obscuring the mask). In this instance, we did want to see the text, so we turned it back on. We also inverted the mask, because we didn't want a text-shaped hunk of the background, we wanted a text-shaped hole cut into it.

Having done all that, if you look at the result in the Canvas, you might notice that it doesn't really look any different. That's because we have one more step in our glow effect, and that's to blur the mask, allowing some of the gradient to bleed into the text.

Blur the mask

  1. In the Layers list, select the Image Mask object.
  2. From the Add Filter toolbar menu or the Library, select the Blur->Gaussian Blur filter.
  3. In the Inspector, view the Filters tab and set the Gaussian Blur Amount to 6.

And now we have some glow bleeding around the edge of the text. It's subtle, but it helps blend the text into the background. To get a better idea of the impact it has, try toggling on/off the 'Glow' layer.

For our final step, we'll add some noise to our project, giving it a little graininess.

Create the 'Grain' layer

  1. In the Layers list, press the plus (+) button to add a new layer or select Object->New Layer from the menu.
  2. Move the new layer to the top of the Layers list, above the 'Glow' layer.
  3. Rename the new layer to 'Grain'.

Add the Noise generator

  1. In the Library, go to the Generators category and drag a Noise generator into the 'Grain' layer in the Layers list.
  2. With the Noise generator selected in the Layers list, view the Generator tab in the Inspector.
  3. Right-click (or Ctrl-click) on the Random Seed label and select Randomize.
  4. In the Layers list, select the 'Grain' layer and view the Properties tab.
  5. Set the Blending->Opacity to 12%.
  6. Set the Blend Mode to 'Overlay'.

Step 3, above, was needed because we want the noise to change on every frame, as film grain does, and the Noise generator does not automatically animate. Adding the Randomize parameter behavior sets a new random value for the noise seed, every frame. The Overlay blend mode makes our noise more apparent in the darker parts of the image, but less-so in the lighter parts.

And there you have our finished text project:

And if you render out the project, you should see something like this:

Here is a screenshot of the final Layers list order, in case you got off track:

And remember, like anything in Motion, with just a little tweaking you can create dramatically different looks. Try playing with, or disabling, the text face and outline gradients, or try adjusting the Extrude filter settings. Good luck and have fun!

<- Page 1: Setup