If you are just learning this is a high intermediate project to tackle, but still doable.
First off here are a few tutorials, you should check out to familiarize yourself with the techniques needed to accomplish this.
Basic Shatter(an oldie, but provides a good foundation for understand shatt...
Custom Shatter Maps
Shattering Glass Tutorial-good tutorial using shatter
So I attempted to recreate the project from the opening credits in your link. Step 1 was to create a pre-comp(PC_Text) with the text fading & scaling up.
Next I grabbed an explosion still from the web and quickly animated it in its own precomp(PC_Explosion). Obviously if you were doing this for a real set of credits you would want to buy some explosion footage to use.
I also found some broken glass and dropped that into a precomp(PC_Shatter Map) to use as a custom shatter map. In my project I created to final compositions, one using the shatter map(it's VERY rough, creating your own will produce MUCH BETTER results) and one using AE's default glass shatter map.
Create a final comp and drop all the precomps into it. Apply the effect Simulation -> Shatter to your PC_Text Layer. The first thing I do when working with shatter is twirl open force and move the "Depth" position to a positive number so it's not breaking anything(it defaults to 0 which explodes the layer.) Next, position the force to where you want it to start breaking the layer and adjust the "Radius" to an appropriate size.
Change the "Shape" to either Glass or Custom. If you are using your own custom shatter map, you will also need to change the "Custom Shatter Map" pulldown.
The next step is to match the Force to your explosion(or whatever object you using to break the layer) by animating the "Depth" of the layer. Positives Numbers are move the force backwards, negative numbers move it forward---you can add a camera to the scene and rotate it around to see how this works(just change "Camera System to "Comp Camera". Lastly, adjust the Force 1-Strength parameter to change the strength of the explosion.
The rest of the project you will find a lot of parameters you will now adjust to taste. Shape Repetitions and Extrusion will control how many pieces you have and the thickness of them(I used different sizes in my projects, based on how it looked). Physics--in my project to match the movie I turned gravity down to .25. Under Textures I chose for the "Side" to use Color + Opacity and used the color white and adjusted the opacity between .5 and .75
Lastly I added a light and animated it's intensity as the shatter happens. If you don't animate the intensity the light will show up before the shatter occurs, I only want my light to provide highlights on the pieces as they explode so I quickly ramp it up as my shards are moving. Finally I went back to the Shatter effect and adjusted the "Materials" to provide the highligts.
Here's my project, hope you find it helpful:
4585_shatterexamplefolder.zip
Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com
"I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work."
---THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.
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