How to Animate 3D VHS Text in After Effects

Master the Art of Retro Titles.

In this tutorial I'll break down how to create a timeless retro animated title / logo. The techniques used are perfect for eternalising old 70s and 80s Scanimate idents📺

📼VHS Emulator – https://sourcelab.shop/products/vhs-e...
📺VHS toolkit PRO – https://sourcelab.shop/products/vhs-t...

Colorama Effects – https://sourcelab.shop/products/color...

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Chapters:
00:00 Overview
00:34 Make it 3D
01:43 Cool lighting trick
04:28 Smooth fly in movement
05:01 Swirly side patterns
06:02 Nice added touches
08:11 Secondary text
09:14 Layering glows
10:15 Emulating a VHS effect
13:18 Final outcome

SOURCE LAB ⓢ

Written breakdown:
1. Add text, check the 3D box, extrude it
2. Add an orthographic camera setup
3. Centre align the anchor point
4. Add spotlights to the left, right, and 4 underneath
5. Tweak light settings to get a nice balance of shadows, highlights, and midtones
6. Use C to navigate around the text
7. Add rotation and position keyframes to create the smooth fly in movement
8. Precompose everything and add a colorama effect
9. Add the expression 'time *100' to the phase shift of the colorama effect
10. Adjust lighting to suit your preference
11. Duplicate the text comp in the project panel and the timeline, remove the extrusion in the new comp
12. Remove the colorama from the new comp
13. kayframe the extrusion of the side comp, so it resolves as 2D text
14. Make sure all keyframes are easy eased
15. Add a ramp, and a colorama effect to the front comp
16. Keyframe the ramp to bring it in towards the text
17. Add the layer styles: bevel emboss, stroke, and inner glow to the front comp
18. Add secondary type, add easy ease keyframes for tracking.
19. Now align so it appears behind the big text
20. Add an echo for a slight retro touch
21. Add glow threshold keyframes to 3 stacked glow effects on an adjustment layer
22. Drag in the VHS emulator from sourcelab.shop and tweak to tailor it to this project
23. Overlay the VHS Textures & Transitions, using screen / colour dodge, opacity and a levels effect
24. You now have a nostalgic VHS Retro Title!

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Thank you for watching :)