Auto Resizing Dynamic Lower Thirds in After Effects | Tutorial

In this After Effects Tutorial, I’ll show you how to create an auto resizing,
dynamic lower third! With an optional fixed height!

Content:
0:00 Intro
0:30 Setting up the text and expression controllers
1:21 The layer control
1:28 Height and width expressions
2:09 The overall size of the shape
2:39 Adding the shape layer
3:10 Centred anchor points
3:55 750+ Motion Graphics Elements
4:40 Animating the lower third
5:13 Fixed Height
6:20 Alight the lower third to the left
7:59 Outro

► School of Motion: Anchor point expressions in After Effects

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► Software: Adobe After Effects 18.4 (I use the "Default" Workspace in my tutorials)

If you have any further questions, let me know in the comments below. I do my best to answer all of them!

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I am very curious how this tutorial inspired your work!
Put the link in the comments below or even better: tag me on Instagram.
► @manueldoesmotion

#aftereffectstutorial #animation #motiondesign

[Walks-Drives]

This video deserves at least 25k likes for 25k views! It's soooo good!

[faithfulnessdonatus]

Awesome tutorial, Please what if I want to align my anchor point of the shape to the right. Do I replace the words 'left' to right in sourceRecAtTine expression code>

[mrfenandes]

I like these more "advanced" tutorials, there's plenty of beginner tutorials out there. People love a good old moan don't they. Love your stuff,
and I'll always appreciate them, keep it up!!

[David.Sotelo]

This is very helpful, thank you so much!

[AndrewMarston]

This is super practical. Thanks for sharing. And congrats on almost 20k subs! Not long before I'm saying "Almost 100k subs!"

[ryanhood]

Is it possible to do this for 2 line lower thirds? I need to have a name and below it extra info. Duplicating the layers doesn't work

[dancu]

a lot of thanks for making and sharing your video!!

[eduardobispo]

Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge!

[flashgamer]

Hi,
The rectangle does not resize if I use a TYPEWRITER animation preset. It only work with the animation method shown in the video.
How can I use the animation preset?
Please help!!!

[bladinier]

Thank you Manuel! This is exactly what i was looking for!

[TrekkingPals]

As a thought, sourceRectAtTime takes arguments, the first of which is the frame number. You could use a protected region (intro) and then just provide the fixed height as the height of the text at the final frame of the protected region in the animation.

[mattmcarthur]

Am I right in thinking the edge values are calculating a percentage of the total width rather than a specific pixel value? I end up with proportionally much larger padding on longer phrases and trying to figure out why!

[dancu]

I was going to ask you how can I learn to animate wiht expresions; but I just see that you have a course in your web page about it, obviously I will buy your work and teaching is awesome!!!

[wesleyallenteodoro]

Hello, awesome video btw. Helped me a lot!
Question: How to do this effect with a two line text box? For example: i want to type a line, hit enter e continue at the second line. I need to type a big text but the box can't let me do it.
Can you help me?

[digitalmole]

Great video. How would you create this auto resizing rig for alphabets that use diacritics/accents (àêïōû)? The text shifts on the y axis as soon as you add characters with accents or punctuation (;, ). Thanks

[Englishforbuddies]

Thanks, Im looking out something similar but for FCP. do you happen to know any way or know anything that could help me? I would appreciate a lot! thanks again

[S_fx]

You take the height data from the text layer and then add it to the slider control, then add width plus edge to get the actual size. Can you clarify how to get the height data from the text layer?

[icepirate]

thanks for the great video, wondering how can I can the animation go from left to right instead of right to left. Other words, right align the text?

[Mrdeluca]

Thanks! But I get alot of warnings (indicates errors with the expression). Why? I follow you exactly.

[nathitappan]

Thanks for the great tutorial as usual Manuel! Quick question: how would you go about it if you wanted to make two lines of text and resize the font to make sure both lines are always the same width?

LINE1
LINE2

But if we changed the content of LINE 1, the font size would follow suit? In the eg bellow "NEWLINE1" would scale down, or "LINE2" would scale up.

NEWLINE1
LINE2

I can do it by matching the layer size of two different text layers with sourceRectAtTime, and connect their positions with expressions. But I'm trying to reduce the amount of layers in this particular project, so hopefully there's a clever way to do it with some lines of code inside the same text layer!

Does that make sense? Any insight is appreciated!