If you’re a cheap bastard, though, or if you enjoy using AE features in ways they’re not designed to be used, have I got the free preset for you!

A little backstory: I’ve been really sick for about a week, and one of the stranger symptoms has been a combination of fever dreams and terrible insomnia. This has led to me basically hallucinating a bunch of After Effects expressions that don’t work, but late last night (er, early this morning) it also led to the realization that the look of 3D Stroke can be achieved with text tool parameters.

I got out of bed to write this, guys. And it totally works! Check it out:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s fully reactive to the comp camera, too — that’s right, you get depth of field, motion blur lights, all that fun stuff. It works by making a 3D tube out of a series of circles that always face the camera.

The .ffx preset format doesn’t allow you to save things that aren’t keyframe data, so there are a few settings you’ll need to add yourself once you apply it. You also need CS5+ and to have the font Webdings installed (the circle is the lowercase n), or find another set of dingbats with a plain circle as an option.

How to use it:

1. Apply the preset to an empty text layer.
2. Paste in the mask shape you want to use and set it as the text path.
3. With the text layer selected, go to Layer -> Transform -> Auto-Orient. Select “Orient Towards Camera” and check the “Orient Each Character Independently” box.
4. Set the layer blend mode to screen or add or whatever looks nice for your purposes.
5. Tweak all the text animation parameters. By default it draws itself on and has some color shift, blur and taper applied.

Here’s another example created from the preset:

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are a few things I’d like to tweak and a couple more features I plan to add later, but, in all, not bad for an insomnia project, eh?

I’ve been figuring this out as I go, but once I have all the elements rigged it should be almost trivial to make new episodes. Also I built the set in PHOTOSHOP which is ridiculous. I don’t have any proper 3D software on my laptop, so the table is all Repousse shapes extruded from rounded rectangles.

But there’s a better way! Put the anchor point in the center of the face, and attach the position keyframe to the Head control point. Then apply the following expression (based on one originally found here) to the rotation parameter:

this_point=thisComp.layer("Spine").effect("Head")("Point");
that_point=thisComp.layer("Spine").effect("Neck")("Point");
delta=sub(this_point, that_point);
angle=Math.atan2(delta[1], delta[0]);
ang = radians_to_degrees(angle);
(ang+90)%360+transform.rotation

Now the head will rotate to match to the angle formed by the head and neck points, but without the weird distortion the Puppet Tool can cause. You can tweak the head’s attach point by shifting the anchor point.

America in Primetime is our four-part series that traces the history of television through different character archetypes. Here’s the trailer:

The entire series is now available in streaming form at pbs.org, along with tons of bonus clips and material.

Angle of Attack: How Naval Aviation Changed the Face of War was released in November through American Public Television and is now available on DVD. I did some snazzy opening titles for this one that I’m pretty proud of. Check out the trailer:

And if you’re a Dish Network or DIRECTV subscriber, be sure to catch Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, airing tonight on the Documentary Channel as part of their “Best of Doc” series.

He needs a name! Best suggestion so far is “Schroedinger”.

Here’s how it looks at the moment:

Here’s the underlying vector map layer:

And even that map began life as a set of even more boring public domain vectors. Everything else is AE-generated. (And yes, the size of Hawaii and Midway are exaggerated slightly for increased visibility on your television screen. Shhhh.)

Nothing is finalized yet; the map that actually ends up in the film could be more different still.

It’s very noir-y. And there’s a scene in the film where I have pigtails…

The title graphics for this were a fun side project for me. I got to do some motion tracking and playing with type made out of lights. I’m really looking forward to seeing the finished product!