Tutorial: Creating Dynamic, Customizable Title Effects in Red Giant Universe 2.1
This tutorial runs through some of the highlights from the new Red Giant Universe 2.1 plug-in package of effects and filters, working in After Effects because that's where so much ambitious title work happens.
Long Shadow
The next one down is Long Shadow. Long Shadow was used in Red Giant’s demo footage as a 3D retro effect, where it comes out at an angle, looking like it's on a 3D column, coming out of the corner of the screen. Of course you can do that, but I decided to try something different. You can control the angle. So what I did was make it vertical and I made it appear and slide out, down the screen from the letters.
At the 8:02 mark in the video, you can see the effect of oozing blood out of the letters.
When it completes, you can see the 3-D column effect that hugs the shape of the letters. You can also affect the choke (shadow) of the effect, so that it draws in more of the letters or it can actually even bleed outside of the letters. Ultimately, when this is complete, it gives a column effect like they're standing up on these columns that are the shape of the letters.
Luster
The final effect that I used here is called Luster. Luster is essentially a chrome or reflective type of effect. It can be designed to interact with a gradient, a solid color, or even some footage behind it.
I chose a preset and didn't make a whole lot of changes beyond the color scheme, but again, you have multiple options on presets (Figure 9, below)--all kinds of different colors with varying degrees of reflectivity.
Figure 9. Luster preset options
Of course, you can start somewhere and tweak it or just choose your own color palette from scratch and make it exactly how you want. This one gets a little overpowered by the subtitle later, so I would really want to either draw the subtitle down in brightness or bring this one up or change the colors altogether so that Bell Witch doesn't get lost from the subtitle that overpowers it.
Subscribing to Universe
That's a quick look at a lot of the new features available in Universe 2.1 from Red Giant. It's available as an annual subscription for Premiere Pro and After Effects, and also other editing platforms. There are many more effects available in Universe, including some effects that were available in previous version that have been updated for 2.1. Go to redgiant.com and check it out for yourself. Happy Halloween.
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This tutorial walks viewers through a number of cool new effects, transitions, and text animation tools in Red Giant's omnibus plugin package, and shows how to navigate and customize the preset options available with each effect.