After Effects Tutorial: Stroke Logo Reveal Outline Effect

Summary

In this tutorial, Josh Noel teaches how to create a stroke logo reveal effect using Adobe After Effects. Starting with a PNG logo, he guides through auto-tracing to create an outline, then adds a stroke and animates it using trim paths for a dynamic reveal. Further, he enhances the animation by adjusting scale and opacity, and suggests experimenting with color transitions for visual interest. The video concludes with a quick render of the final effect and an invitation for feedback.

Takeaways

• 🎨 The tutorial focuses on creating a stroke logo reveal effect in Adobe After Effects.
• 📁 Ensure your logo file is in PNG format with a transparent background, or use a vector file like an Illustrator file for better control.
• 🖱️ If using a vector file, you can create shapes from the vector layer to simplify the process.
• 🧰 For PNG files, use 'Auto Trace' to generate an outline, ensuring the channel is set to Alpha and the tolerance is around 2-4.
• ✏️ Instead of using the 'Generate Stroke' effect, copying the mask path and pasting it into a shape layer gives more control over the stroke.
• 🔧 Add 'Trim Paths' to animate the stroke, setting keyframes for 'Start' and 'Offset' to control the stroke’s appearance.
• ⏱️ Use easy ease (F9) on keyframes to smooth out the animation, making transitions more fluid.
• 🔍 Adjust the scale of the shape layer to match the logo, ensuring everything aligns properly.
• 🎨 You can play around with color animations by adding keyframes for color and transitioning the stroke to different colors during the reveal.
• ✅ The final effect reveals the logo with a smooth stroke animation and color transitions, as demonstrated at the end of the tutorial.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the tutorial presented by Josh Noel?

The tutorial focuses on creating a stroke logo reveal effect, which involves outlining a logo and then revealing the full logo.

What file formats are suitable for the logo in this tutorial?

The tutorial suggests using PNG or JPEG files for the logo, ensuring the logo is on a transparent background.

How can vector files be utilized in the tutorial's process?

If you have a vector file like an Illustrator file, you can right-click the logo and create shapes from the vector layer to save time.

What is the purpose of using 'Auto Trace' in the tutorial?

Auto Trace is used to create an outline of the logo on a white solid, which is necessary for the stroke effect.

What settings are recommended for the 'Auto Trace' channel and tolerance?

The channel should be set to Alpha, and the tolerance is recommended to be between two to four, with three being a good starting point.

Why is it better to convert the traced outline into a shape layer instead of using the 'Generate Stroke' effect?

Converting the traced outline into a shape layer provides more control over the stroke properties compared to using the 'Generate Stroke' effect.

How does the tutorial suggest animating the stroke reveal?

The tutorial suggests using the Trim Paths effect to animate the stroke reveal, starting at 100% and animating to 0% over time.

What additional animation technique is shown to make the reveal more interesting?

The tutorial shows how to animate the offset of the Trim Paths effect to make the stroke rotate as it reveals.

How is the final reveal of the logo achieved in the animation?

The final reveal of the logo is achieved by keyframing the opacity of the logo layer to go from 0% to 100% as the stroke animation completes.

What additional tip is given for enhancing the animation?

The tutorial suggests playing with the color of the stroke to add more interest to the animation, such as transitioning the color to black towards the end.

What is the final step to ensure the logo scales correctly with the animation?

The final step is to adjust the scale of the logo layer to match the size of the shape layer after the stroke animation.

Outlines

00:00

🎨 Creating a Stroke Logo Reveal Effect in After Effects

In this tutorial, Josh Noel introduces how to create a simple stroke logo reveal effect using Adobe After Effects. He explains that it's a widely requested technique, which involves taking a logo, outlining it with a stroke, and then revealing the full logo. He briefly plays with colors, changing the stroke to black for added dimension, before walking through the detailed steps to begin the process. Starting with importing a PNG logo file, Josh stresses the importance of a transparent background. For those with vector logos, he suggests converting them to shape layers for easier manipulation. This segment sets the stage for building a stroke animation around the logo.

05:00

🖌️ Preparing the Logo and Auto Trace Setup

Josh continues by selecting the PNG layer and using the Auto Trace tool to outline the logo. He emphasizes setting the channel to Alpha and adjusting tolerance, suggesting a range of 2-4 for best results. Once the outline is generated, instead of using the built-in stroke effect, which offers limited control, Josh shows how to manually create a shape layer. He opens the mask, copies the mask path, and pastes it into a new shape layer, hiding the original traced layer. This approach provides greater flexibility in controlling the stroke effect, allowing for more customization.

✍️ Adding and Adjusting the Stroke Path

With the shape layer set up, Josh adds a stroke to the path and demonstrates how to adjust its width to achieve the desired look. He explains how to handle additional elements in the logo, such as inner paths, by copying and pasting them into the same shape layer. After configuring the stroke, Josh introduces the Trim Paths feature to animate the logo's outline. He adds keyframes to control the start, offset, and end of the stroke animation, creating a dynamic effect where the logo is revealed through a rotating stroke animation. This process adds visual interest to the stroke reveal.

🔄 Fine-Tuning Animation and Keyframes

Josh delves into refining the animation by adjusting keyframes to smooth out transitions. He uses the Easy Ease feature (F9) to make the animation more fluid at the start and end. After scaling down the logo to better match the shape layer, he reverses the keyframes to make the animation go in reverse, enhancing the overall visual appeal. This step ensures that the logo's reveal is smooth and synchronized with the stroke outline.

🌈 Customizing Colors and Finalizing the Animation

In the final stages, Josh activates the logo layer and aligns it with the animated stroke. He tweaks the opacity settings, making sure the logo reveals itself at the right moment. Additionally, Josh suggests playing with the stroke colors by keyframing color changes—transitioning from one color to another (e.g., white to black) to enhance the effect. After a quick render, the full stroke and logo reveal animation is completed. Josh encourages viewers to experiment with different color variations, wraps up the tutorial, and invites viewers to engage with his social media and YouTube channel for more content.

Keywords

💡Stroke

In the context of the video, 'stroke' refers to the outline or line that defines the shape of a graphic element, such as a logo. The video tutorial focuses on creating a stroke effect for a logo reveal, which is a popular animation technique. The stroke is used to add depth and dimension to the logo animation, as mentioned when the instructor changes the stroke color to black to enhance the effect.

💡Logo Reveal

A 'logo reveal' is a type of animation where a logo is gradually unveiled to the viewer, often as part of an introductory sequence in videos or presentations. The video script describes creating a logo reveal with a stroke effect, which involves animating the stroke of the logo to build anticipation and then revealing the full logo.

💡PNG

PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics, a file format used for high-quality images with transparency. The video script mentions using a PNG file for the logo to ensure that the logo has a transparent background, which is crucial for the stroke effect to work correctly without a background.

💡Auto Trace

Auto Trace is a feature in graphic editing software that automatically converts a bitmap image into a vector shape. In the script, the instructor uses Auto Trace on a PNG logo to create a path that can be used for the stroke effect, which is a key step in the tutorial.

💡Mask

A 'mask' in video editing is a tool used to hide or reveal parts of a layer. The script describes using a mask to copy the path from the traced logo, which is then pasted into a shape layer to create the stroke. Masks are essential for isolating the logo's outline for the animation.

💡Shape Layer

A 'shape layer' is a type of layer in Adobe After Effects that allows for the creation of vector shapes and paths. The video script instructs viewers to convert the traced logo into a shape layer to have more control over the stroke effect, as opposed to using the 'generate stroke' effect.

💡Trim Paths

Trim Paths is an effect used to animate the reveal of a shape or path. In the tutorial, the instructor applies the Trim Paths effect to animate the stroke of the logo, creating a dynamic reveal that starts at 100% and animates to 0%, showcasing the logo in a creative way.

💡Key Framing

Key framing is the process of setting the start and end points of an animation to define how properties change over time. The script describes key framing the start and end of the Trim Paths effect to control the animation of the logo reveal, as well as key framing the scale and opacity for further refinement of the animation.

💡Opacity

Opacity refers to the transparency level of an object or layer. In the video, the instructor sets a key frame for opacity to make the logo start fully transparent and then become fully opaque as part of the reveal animation.

💡Easy Ease

Easy Ease is a type of animation easing that makes the motion of an object start slow and then speed up or vice versa. The script mentions using Easy Ease (F9) on key frames to smooth out the animation, making the logo reveal appear more natural and less mechanical.

💡Render

Rendering is the process of generating a final video or animation from the edited project. The video script concludes with a mention of rendering the final animation to see the logo reveal with the stroke effect, which is the end goal of the tutorial.

Highlights

Tutorial on creating a stroke logo reveal effect

Stroke effect adds dimension to the logo

Logo should be on a transparent background like PNG

Using vector files like Illustrator can simplify the process

Auto trace feature to create an outline from a PNG logo

Setting the channel to Alpha and tolerance between 2 to 4 for auto trace

Converting the traced outline into a shape layer for more control

Adding a stroke effect to the path for the logo outline

Using trim paths to animate the outline reveal

Adjusting the start and offset for a dynamic animation effect

Key framing the end of the trim path to close up the animation

Scaling the shape layer to match the logo size

Revealing the logo by key framing its opacity

Fine-tuning the scale for a precise logo reveal

Animating the stroke color transition for added visual interest

Rendering the final animation to showcase the effect

Invitation for questions and engagement on social media

Encouragement to subscribe for more tutorial videos

Gratitude expressed for watching the tutorial

Transcripts

[Music]

hey what is going on internet Josh Noel

from suuck film so today we have a

tutorial on creating sort of a stroke

logo reveal and this is what we'll be

creating in this tutorial and you know

it's pretty simple but I think it's a

great concept because I know like a lot

of you guys requested like how to do the

sort of stroke effect where you can take

like a logo and do an outline on it and

then we can reveal in our full logo and

I was playing around with the color here

like I changed the stroke to Black there

just to kind of add a little bit more

Dimension to this effect so anyway I'll

go ahead and show you guys how you can

do this so what we'll do is we'll have

our new composition here is we'll drag

in our logo which is a PNG file um and

basically a lot of your logos will

probably be you know a PNG or some sort

of jpeg just make sure that you don't

have the background uh you know on your

logo just make sure you just have your

logo on a transparent sort of background

like a PNG however if you do have say

like a vector file like a illustrator

file kind of like this um and you can

kind of skip ahead here but what you can

do is right click your logo here and you

can create shapes from vector layer so

right click layer and then you have this

all in the shape layer which will save

you a tremendous amount of time but I'm

going to assume that a lot of people do

not have you know Vector files of the

logo or something so I'm going to assume

that you guys have PNG so what we're

going to do is we're going to make sure

our PNG layer is selected and we're

going to go up to layer and we're going

to go ahead and click on on auto trace

and what we need to be aware of is the

channel which this needs to be set to

Alpha and the tolerance which I have set

at three um but you don't really want to

go too low or things can get a little

Jagged um and I think a good number is

usually between two to four so two three

or four should be fine so I'll so go

ahead and set it the three you might

have to experiment with it but uh once

you're done here uh just click okay and

as you can see we have kind of have a

outline of our logo on a white solid and

is exactly what we need now typically

what you would do is go to effect you

know uh generate stroke but I'm not

going to do that because you don't have

a lot of control over that you have a

lot more control if you can put this

into a shape layer so what I'm going to

do is I'm going to go ahead and open up

the mask here for our Trac layer and

under mask one open that up and then I'm

going to go to the mask path and I'm

going to go ahead and just copy this

okay and I'll close off the key frame

there then I'm go to layer new shape

layer and we'll go ahead and open up

this and go to add and we'll go ahead

and add a path and we'll open up path

one and we'll just paste in our mask and

as you see we kind of have a mask here

go ahead and hide our Trace layer and

then what I'm going to do is go to add

and click on stroke and if we open up

the stroke say set the stroke width to

like five or something maybe we'll do 10

as you can see we kind of have the uh

path of our logo here and then if you

want to do a little something extra

maybe we can also copy like if you have

any like extra sort of outlines in your

logo like I have my ey here I just have

to basically just copy the path go back

up to add and add another path and I can

just paste that right into there and now

I have my eye into uh my shape layer

here so now what we can do since we have

the you know the outline of our logo in

our shape layer here is I can go to add

and click on trim paths and let me go

ahead and put that uh underneath our

stroke

and you know if I click here I can see I

can start to you know animate this

outline and it looks pretty cool so uh

you know instead of just doing like from

like you know from 100% to 0% I wanted

wanted this to be a little bit cool so

I'm going I want to show you guys kind

of how we can add make this a little bit

interesting so what I'll do is I'll set

the start to

100% and we'll go ahead and we'll key

frame the start and the offset here and

we'll move forward to like say 1 second

and we'll set the start to 0%

and you see just comes on like that and

we'll go ahead and you know maybe

increase the offset to like maybe you

know 100° or something so as this comes

on it'll kind of like rotate and then

what I'll do to kind of like close up

this animation is I'll key frame the end

here and we'll move forward in time to

like you know 1 second and 11 frames and

we'll set this to 0% so now uh basically

this will kind of come on and then it'll

kind of just close up towards the end

and what I'll do is for the offset I'll

kind of just make sure that key frame

kind of touches the our end key frame

here so it'll kind of always animate and

then when I'm done here I'm going to go

ahead and select all of my key frames

here and hit F9 on my keyboard for easy

as key Fram so things will kind of just

smooth out um at towards the beginning

and the end of our animation and let's

go ahead and go ahead and hit s on our

keyboard uh to bring up scale for our

shape layer make sure it's selected and

we can just scale this down by a little

bit and what I'll do is I'll take both

of our offset key frames here I'll

select both of them and I'll right click

them and click key frame assistance and

time reverse key frame

so now things will kind of just uh go in

the same motion and what I'm going to do

is I'm going to turn on our logo layer

and I'm going to hit s on the keyboard

to bring up the scale and I'm going to

go ahead and kind of just like put this

um you know kind of try to match this up

to where it should be our shape layer

and that should be fine for now or

actually should be good uh in total and

you can see uh we kind of just ruined

everything so what we're going to do so

hit t on our keyboard to bring up the

opacity and we'll hit U on our keyboard

to bring up all the key frames on our

shape layer one here and let's see we

want our uh logo to be revealed on like

right here % so we'll do so click a key

frame for uh opacity and we'll move

forward in time a little bit and we'll

set the opacity to 0% so now we have our

full stroke and then our logo kind of

just reveals on kind of like that maybe

we need to scale this down just by like

maybe to like 68% or something maybe

69% yeah that should be that's good so

now our logo kind of just comes on and

things look really good and then uh you

know to add just a little bit more

interesting animation to this um maybe

you can play with the colors a little

bit you know I don't know if it worked

for me but maybe it can work for you

what I would do is I would go to the uh

stroke here and I will click the key

frame for color and then you know

towards the go to like the end key frame

here and set the color to

Black and make both of these key frames

easy as key frames by hitting F9 on your

keyboard and this thing will kind of

just transition the black you know

towards the you know end there so looks

pretty cool I think and after a quick

render this is what we have and pretty

much what I showed you guys at the

beginning so if you guys have any

questions please drop a comment down

below and be sure to hit me up on my

social media networks those links in the

description of this video and if you

guys are new to the Channel Please

Subscribe for more after fact videos

just like this and if you guys enjoyed

the video please drop a like because it

helps me out tremendously and as always

guys thank you so much for watching this

video and I hope you have a good day

[Music]