This Logo Will Self Destruct In 5 Seconds

Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: After Effects and Trapcode Form
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • Run Time: 19:33 min
Download Source Files

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

In this tutorial we will be creating a really cool title effect suitable for epic title sequences. The tutorial will explain the steps in order to create a Time Trail effect, and then disintegrate the title to transition out.

You will want to have a rendered out text animation, preferably having the text flying into center from all sides of the shot, creating a better Time Trail.

Republished Tutorial

Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in December of 2009.


Tutorial

Download Tutorial .flv

File size 130MB

  • kodama

    Hey, nice tut!

    i would really like to know how the background (the spacy smoke..) can be done.. is it some kind of fractal noise stuff?

    thanks

  • herryC

    This is what I’m looking for!
    Thanks dude!

  • Castiel

    Why y dont show haw set camera movment ?! Not all are know haw to do that !

  • http://www.cyphermesh.com Juan

    Whoa. That is gnarly, bodacious, radically brain sponging material. Can we have more for the fix?

    Keep em coming.

  • Alex

    Hello, Sorry im really struggling in how to make the beginning bit, please could you maybe give me a step by step short text tutorial ? Or a link to a tutorial to help me do this? Thanks :D

  • manisuresh

    excelent

  • http://arnom.nl Arno Moonen

    It’s a pretty awesome tutorial, but it would have been like sub-zero if you would have explained how you did the camera movement too.
    PS: It’s not too late to make up for that mistake.. :-9

  • baris

    Hi,
    Trapcode Form doesn’t work for me i’m using CS5, it’s size problem i though, when i change the settings the form effect screen split four pieces and contrast moving down
    sorry for my english :)

  • Frank

    my particles are not falling down…They stick to the screen at the end of the sequence…what am I doing wrong here ?

  • Anand

    Can someone please tell me how to create the text animation in the beginning?

  • anon

    The fact that you don’t explain how to make everything in this tutorial is poor.

    Lots of people are coming on here, using the site and these tutorials because they don’t know After Effects very well. To you it might be easy to create animated text, but to a lot of people it’s difficult and some don’t even know where to begin.
    As a tutorial, this fails.

    It’s a shame because you’ve created an awesome effect.

    • Dan

      I agree with you.
      Ae tuts has become a site for experts and not for beginners….

  • Rood

    I was going to pay for a membership to learn more stuff on after effect but on every tutorial people are complaining about the poor explanation offered …. seems to show that you offer the free stuff to entice people to become a member but if your free stuff are such poor quality (ability to tutor) then I doubt that I’l learn anything by becoming a member ………and worse not once have I seen any complaints get any attention whatsoever ….

  • Glutenfree4u

    lately most of your tuts all need trapcode!
    please put more out that the average AE user can make use of!

  • http://www.illuminated-pictures.ch Simon

    Just skipped through the tutorial. First, thanks of course for the effort! but as far as I could see and remember its nearly a 1to1 copy of the old creativecow Tutorial “Text to Sand Transition”.
    -> http://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/red_giant_sand_transition/video-tutorial

    I never did a Tutorial myself so who am I to judge, but I’d try to explain more why you do the things you do and how they affect each other. It was more like you just showing which buttons to press to get the same result.
    For example you should tell that you set up the Trapcode Form Grid with 1280/720 because its the exact size of your comp and you want to have an Particle on every Pixel of your comp so you also put 1280/720/1 Particles on the grid and like this you can use your Text Precomp to rebuild the Animation with particles etc. If anyone wants to do the animation in Full HD or any other resolution and doesn’t understand this principle he will have holes in his Animation or other problems he might not understand. (Also you may want to increase the size of your particles a bit. Because they are round and faded to the edge you get a slight transparency as seen in the tutorial.)

    Beside that there where some nice techniques like with the Gradient or the Fractal noise to make the Solids more Interesting and add depth to them.

    Best,
    Simon

  • http://www.clarityinmotion.co.uk Gerry

    Great Tut! Should have been delivered in parts 1, 2, 3 etc… Would have been great for those beginners out there.

    Lots of comments on here, regarding the style of delivery, personally I have to agree that deeper explanation is certainly missing on most of the tuts on here. And no one responds to beginner questions, which is a real shame.

    Great effect, bad delivery.

  • http://www.behance.net.com/willyb Willy

    Ahmed!

    nice tute man! hope you are doing well!

    Willy B

  • http://www.youtube.com/Ruffneck101 Brock T

    Thank you very much for this! I’ve actually been looking for a way to green screen a subject and disintegrate him into particles for a movie trailer I am currently working on. This did the trick! Much appreciated, and great tutorial! For the people asking questions about camera movements and asking for step-by-step tutorials on things that are very basic in After Effects. He rated this for intermediate, so I suggest maybe trying possibly some After Effects basics tutorials, then come back to things like these, it will make your work so much easier! Good luck!

    Brock

  • Ahmad ataya