Can you have drop shadow ONLY on text (with no stroke or fill)?

Can you have drop shadow ONLY on text (with no stroke or fill)?

on Jul 5, 2015 at 8:39:26 pm

Hi,

Basically, this is my issue.... I have text with drop shadow over a background. Then, over the text, I have light leak footage with blend mode set to "Screen". I really like the effect, but when the light leak is bright, the drop shadow is not visible. I want there to be a drop shadow the cuts through the light leak, so I'd like the drop shadow to be over top of of the light leak. However, I can't seem to turn off stroke or fill and put the text on top of the light leak - I want to do this to prevent the title doubling in intensity when the light leak comes up - (I also have a glow on the text that doubles). Any suggestions for how to make this work? I'm a pretty inexperienced AE person, bear in mind.

Film Editor, London UK
http://www.scottclementseditor.com

Re: Can you have drop shadow ONLY on text (with no stroke or fill)?

by Scrabo Shepherd

on Jul 5, 2015 at 10:39:03 pm

Hi! Can you shoow some pics?

Re: Can you have drop shadow ONLY on text (with no stroke or fill)?

by Joseph W. Bourke

on Jul 6, 2015 at 3:23:08 am

I think if you use the Drop Shadow Effect from the Perspective menu, you can set it to be Shadow Only. I don't have AE open right now so I can't check that.

Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com

Re: Can you have drop shadow ONLY on text (with no stroke or fill)?

by ryan kelly

on Jul 6, 2015 at 6:24:51 pm

If I follow, you could create your text, duplicate the text layer, set the layer below the duplicate to track matte alpha invert and then add the drop shadow effect to this layer

like this:

Re: Can you have drop shadow ONLY on text (with no stroke or fill)?

by Joseph W. Bourke

on Jul 6, 2015 at 8:03:56 pm

In terms of having just the drop shadow: create your text, apply the Effect/Perspective/Drop Shadow to your text. In the Effect Controls panel you will see a check box at the bottom of the panel which says "Shadow Only". When you click that check box, you will have only the Drop Shadow, without the text.

Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com

Re: Can you have drop shadow ONLY on text (with no stroke or fill)?

on Jul 6, 2015 at 8:29:23 pm

Hi, Ryan. I think that's the answer!

Joseph, the only problem with the method you proposed is that it shows the shadow in parts of the image I don't want to see it (over the text on the lower layer) - but definitely good to know about that "shadow only" button, which I didn't know about.

Film Editor, London UK
http://www.scottclementseditor.com

Re: Can you have drop shadow ONLY on text (with no stroke or fill)?

on Jul 6, 2015 at 8:40:52 pm

Ryan's suggestion mostly works. It mostly shows just the shadow, but there are slight white outlines to the text as well as a bit of grey fill (depending on how the screen effect is interacting with the layers below). In principle, it is the correct answer, but it's not exactly what I was looking for - which was just the shadow, all by itself. But, it's good enough for my purposes. Thanks!

Film Editor, London UK
http://www.scottclementseditor.com

Re: Can you have drop shadow ONLY on text (with no stroke or fill)?

by ryan kelly

on Jul 6, 2015 at 8:48:54 pm

Glad this process worked. Joe's is good too - lots of ways to skin a cat in AE.

If you add a stroke (or thicken the existing text stroke)to the track matte layer only that should get rid of that white halo you're talking about. You could also try a matte choker (with a negative value) if it's not too extreme.

Good luck!

Re: Can you have drop shadow ONLY on text (with no stroke or fill)?

on Jul 6, 2015 at 9:25:55 pm

Ah, great! Thanks!

Film Editor, London UK
http://www.scottclementseditor.com