MGD 165 - After Effects I

This tutorial shows how to turn text to sand or dust in After Effects, and then have it blow away in the wind - all without 3rd party plugins.
Create a composition...the aspect ratio will determine the impact of the settings. I am using 1280x720
Add some text and duplicate the layer
Select the top layer and add CC Particle systems II
- The effect gets cut off so add CC Composite and make sure it's positioned on top in the effects panel
Expand the following - Producer, Physics, Particle and change the following settings
*note: checking "Source Alpha inheritence" will allow have the generator adhere to the letters...you can animate this from one side to another by keyframing position under producer. About 1.5 sec
- Radius X = 1
- Radius Y = 13
- Birthrate (how many) = play with how many you want
- Longevity (how long they last) = 4 (or what looks good to you)
- Animation Preset = direction normalized
- Velocity = .3 (very sensitive)
- Inherent Velocity = 40 (speed of the producer)
- Gravity = -.3
- Resistance = 20 (how much the particles slow down after initial burst)
- Extra = 2 (creates randomness)
- Particle Type = line (this will create the type of effect you want so try playing with it)
- Max Opacity = 22% (lower the brightness)
- Birth color = sample the text color
- Death color = darken the text color a bit
To add more randomness we are going to use the wiggle expression (alt/opt click the stopwatch on the Radius X property) - More on expressions
- wiggle(10,1) I used the following settings:
To add more randomness use Turbulent Displace
- Amount = 35
- Complexity = 1.5
- Evolution = Expression: time*120
- Offset = Expression: value-[time*300]
- Random seed = Expression: index (references the layer number)
Duplicate the layer 3 times to add more randomness (which Random Seed will have some effect)
Add Linear Wipe to the bottom text layer (this will wipe the text away)
- Feather = 50
- Animate Transition completion: Frame 1 = 0 1.5 sec = 100
- Angle Wipe 90

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