Created a new comp and added the Blure By Word.ffx from the preset folder in After Effects.
I then Replaced the text with eg: TEST and added a gradient, 1mm stroke and a drop shadow via the Layer Styles by right clicking on the layer text in my comp.
What happens is when the text blurs on the screen is goes all black. It appears that the black stroke and drop shadow is causing it to go black.
Should I be adding the gradient, stroke and drop shadow another way?
Re: Gradient stroke and shadow on text by Tony Sarafoski on Aug 17, 2008 at 1:31:49 pm
I think i've worked it out, however please let me know if there is an easier way.
After adding a preset/text/animate in title which already has a stroke effects added. I then add a gradient by right mouse clicking on the text layer and selecting Layer Styles Gradient. I then had to change the gradient blend mode to multiply and all works well.
Re: Gradient stroke and shadow on text by Darby Edelen on Aug 18, 2008 at 9:31:02 pm
I can't give you a silver bullet to solve all of your problems, but I can tell you that Layer Styles are rendered as the LAST STEP in the rendering process.
This means that any blurs (including depth of field and motion blur) are rendered BEFORE any layer styles are rendered. Most of the layer styles will behave strangely on these blurred semi-transparent areas. The semi-transparent areas can result in fully opaque strokes, for example.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves about layer styles. Usually the solution is to apply the layer styles in a nested composition and then apply the blurs to the pre-comp... but this is not an option when dealing with text animators!
Believe me, I've been there and it's not fun. I usually resort to trying to find other ways to create my 'layer styles' using effects.
