AE

This effect comes from a netizen's help post.

First of all, I haven't seen Kamen Rider, so I'm not a Cavaliers fan. Please don't care too much about the difference between the icon and the original picture.

The whole dynamic effect is simple, appearing and disappearing, and the text part is completed by directional fuzzy effect.

In fact, this part is very little, so this article mainly shares with you my process of processing the material, which is divided into three parts: text, icon and background.

character handling

1. Draw the text with AI first-AE \ ps is ok, depending on personal preference.

2. After the text is drawn, just throw the text into AE, add white projection and black stroke.

But when I blurred the text with good projection and stroke effect, I found that the whole text was a paste, which was very ugly and completely unexpected.

There are two ways to solve this problem.

One is to do a good job of projection and strokes in AI-that's what I did. I don't know the strokes in AI, so it is troublesome and ineffective to piece them together with two projections in opposite directions (of course, it may be that my skills are too poor).

Therefore, it is suggested to use layer style in AE, export transparent background PNG after adding shadows and strokes, and then import it into AE for use, which is very efficient.

As shown below, it is obvious which stroke is better.

Be careful not to make the strokes too wide when adding AE, or you will see a large area of black shadow when adding blur, which is ugly! If it is too wide, you can trim the edge with a simple shading tool, which is not a big problem.

3. In order to make the text more textured, I also added the effect of particles in the text to make the surface of the text less clean and thus thicker. AE, AI and PS can all add particle effects. If you don't want the particle effect to affect the projection and stroke, you'd better add it to a text layer without projection and stroke, just put it on the top layer.

It is suggested to add particles at the end of the output, otherwise your preview and operation may get stuck, believe me.

Here, words are processed.

Let's talk about the way signs are made first.

1. The picture found on the Internet is made into an outline by adding a series of effects.

These four effects have the following functions:

Finding edges: getting contours

Extraction: Deduct white background

Mask Blocking Tool: Shrink Edge

Fills: modifying outline colors

Note that the effect in AE is hierarchical, and the lower layer affects the upper layer, so if you extract the background first and then find the edge, the effect will be completely different.

This method is pleasing, but the disadvantage is that the processed contour will have obvious burrs after enlargement, so it is better to take some time to describe it.

I use the pen tool to draw the path and add strokes to the rest of the icon outline.

3. When the pen tool (G) draws the stroke path, it is recommended to close the stroke first to facilitate adjustment.

First draw a complete outline quickly, and then pull out the baseline for fine-tuning to align the points on both sides. Don't think it is troublesome to pull the reference line. The return of this operation is still great.

background processing

The original background is also the material found online. By adding a solid background and other cloud materials, I can mix a background that I think is ok.

The general treatment method is as follows:

1. First, create a pure blue background, mix the original image with the solid color background through the screen, and adjust the opacity of the layer accordingly, so that the original image background can be removed, the permeability of the clouds can be preserved, and a clean background can be obtained:

2. Because the whole background is too monotonous, in order to enhance the layering of the whole background, some small clouds are added to the background to improve the contrast.

In order to blend the cloud into the background, it is necessary to add feathers to the mask and adjust the size and opacity of the cut cloud if necessary. The most important thing is to use the curve tool to adjust the individual colors in R, G and B channels respectively.

Only in the red/green channel, the brightness value of the red/green channel is adjusted to be close to the surrounding by the red/green curve, and a good background fusion effect is achieved. There is no need to adjust the blue color here.

3. Add an adjustment layer, add a dark corner effect CC vignetting to focus the visual focus on the text, add a luminous effect to the logo to make it brighter, and finally add a curve to adjust the brightness contrast of the whole picture.

So the whole effect is completed.

Question answer

Q: Why do signs need to be covered by masks instead of simply covering them?

A: Here, the two are actually the same. Personally, I feel that the edges repaired by simple occlusion tools are more virtual, while mask occlusion can repair more solid edges. I will publish an article explaining the difference between the two in the future.

Finally, review the effects used in the whole production process:

1. Layer style adds shadows and strokes, AE\AI\PS can make this effect;

2. Simple shading tool and mask shading tool trim edges;

3. Add particles to increase the texture of the text;

4. Keying effect extraction and cutting out black and white background;

5. Find the edge;

6. Layer blending mode: screen, which is often used to keep the brighter part;

7. The curve tool colors and adjusts the light and shade;

8. Luminous effect.

That's all I'll share in this issue. If you do it with me, you must know something about these effects. Please leave a message if you have any questions.