#Drop shadow after effects solid how to#

Go to Layer > New > Light and make sure that the Cast Shadows check box is selected. Now we’ll add a light, so that we can begin creating our shadows. Align the bottoms of your text layers to your new Solid plane so that they’re on the “ground.”

The next - very important - step, is to change your camera view from Active Camera to Right. This will be your plane for the shadows, sometimes called a “shadow catcher”. Make your new Solid a 3D layer and rotate and place it within the composition so it fits the perspective of the clip. Go to Layer > New > Solid and create a new white (#ffffff) Solid. Since the footage file will not be a 3D layer, we need a plane for the shadows to project onto. I also parented the “AP” to the “G” with the “Parenting” Piq Whip, so that I can animate the whole word consistently. Rotate your layers so that they fit with the perspective of the scene.įor this scene, we know that the letter “G” gets shattered in the end, so we’ll want to keep that as a separate layer. Start adding your text, making it into 3D layers by checking the “3D” box on each text layer. To create the final clip in this tutorial, I used New York City Subway Train Arriving by Shutterstock contributor Duncan Frazier: Go to File > Import > File and input your footage of choice. As with our previous video tutorials, all of the tools and effects used here come standard with After Effects. We’ll also touch on another powerful effect called Shatter.

#Drop shadow after effects solid how to#

Have you ever wanted to put text into your video and make it look like it really lives in the scene? No, this isn’t another 3D Camera Tracking Tutorial - this time, you’ll learn how to add shadows to your text, making it appear as if it’s really in the shot.