Hello everyone! Today’s tutorial will show you how to create 3D text and then make it bounce it with a simple expression. This effect is quite cool because you can easily modify or change the characters to words, symbols, or even shape layers.

Tutorial

Step 1

First of all I created a New Composition by clicking Composition > New Composition. Make it 1280×720, 25 frame per sec, 6 seconds long and name it as "Bouncing 3D text".

Step 2

Create a new solid clicking by Layer >New >Solid. Change the color to Black. Make it comp size (1280*720) and name it as ‘BG’. Then go to Effect >Generate >Ramp and set the following properties.Set the Start of Ramp: 640, 360, Start color to #83648b, End of Ramp: 640, 1500, End Color to #3e2544 and the Ramp Shape: Radial Ramp.

Step 3

Let’s create a new composition for the letters by clicking Composition >New Composition. Make it 1280×720, 25 frame per sec, 6 seconds long and name it as "A". Import your logo and drop it center of the composition (or you can write 1 letter with the type tool). Make a 3D layer and move the anchor point to the center. When you done then precompose it by clicking Layer > Pre-compose, name it "A 3D", Move all attributes and hit OK.

Step 4

Now open the "A 3D" composition (double click on it.). Now duplicate the "A" precomp and make 3D. Choose the bottom precomp and darken it. (Effect > Color Correction > Curves)

Step 5

Now duplicate the darker precomp several times and change the Z position every precomp as you can see(1,2,3,4,5,6…60). I duplicated sixty times. We are done with 1 letter. Now we can create the other letters by same settings.

Step 6

If you done with all letters, in the project window create a new folder, name it Letters and drop it all of the letters precomp.

Step 7

Open the Bouncing 3D Text comp, and drop it the 3D letters, turn on the Collapse Transformation icon and make 3D. Change the position for every precomp.

Step 8

Let’s bounce the letters! Select the first letter "A", choose the Anchor Point and clicking the stopwatch by ALT+Click and paste this code:

freq = 1.3; // oscillations per second
amplitude = -360;
decay = 2.3;
t = time – marker.key(1).time;
posCos = Math.abs(Math.cos(freq*t*2*Math.PI));
y = amplitude*posCos/Math.exp(decay*t);
anchorPoint – [0,y]

If you click out the box you get the Error window, but you don’t worry just hit OK. Move few frames and make marker (clicking by Numpad "*" or Layer > Add Marker), and trim the comp.

Step 9

If the text is not bouncing just click in the Expression box and click out. And moving :) Now let’s create the other letters with different times. If you want to mor/less bouncing modify the freq and the decay’s value.

Step 10

Duplicate the letters for create the shadow. Move it up and precompose by clicking Layer > Precompose. Name it "Letters Shadow", Move all attributes and hit OK.

Step 11

Make 3D and modify the position, scale, and the orientation. Lastly we colorize it by Fill (Effect > Generate > Fill) and add a Blur effect (Effect > Blur and Sharpen > Gaussian Blur) and change the following properties. Oh and the Opacity is: 25%.

Step 12

We have to create the 35 mm camera. Choose the Point of Interest, the Position and let’s change some camera properties.

Step 13

You have to see something similar if you did everything well:

Step 14

We need some lights, so let’s create 2 lights. Layer > New > Lights. And change lights position.

Step 15

Now it1s time to create the flares. Create a new solid clicking by Layer >New >Solid. Change the color to Black. Make it comp size (1280*720) and name it as ‘OF’.

Step 16

Go to Effect >Video Copilot >Optical Flares and first click on the clear all button and after that you will have to add 2 lens object (Shimmer, Streak). Set the Global Color to: #a17eb4, and change the Shimmer Brightness, Scale, and Speed values.

Step 17

Let’s set the Positioning Mode to Track Lights and the Render Mode: On Transparent.

Step 18

Move the OF layer under the text layers. In 0:00:00:00 change the Brightness to 750 (click on the stopwatch) and move it 0:00:00:17 and change the value to 100.

Step 19

Create a new solid clicking by Layer > New > Adjustment Layer.Make it comp size (1280*720) and name it as ‘Vignette’.

Step 20

With the Vignette layer selected let’s double click on the Ellipse Tool and create an elliptical mask with the following settings. Finally add a Levels effect (Effect > Collor Correction > Levels) and change Output White to 180.

Final Image