Subtitles in After Effects

I'm doing "fun" creative subtitles for a childrens short story which seems best done in After Effects...however Im not sure how to correctly go about doing something like this.

I have tried doing the texts as seperate layers in Photoshop and importing them into AE.. but all of the placement of the texts gets lost when I import it as a composition to AE..

I also tried doing the text on individual layers as typed in After Effects.. but I realize that I will end up with 100's of layers in After Effects by the time I finish...


someone help me find a method to do this that is correct in the industry!

thanks!

Do you know exactly how long each subtitle is going to appear and where it needs to be placed? If so, create all the layers you need and put it into one or several comps. If you don't have it all measured out, I would just do the layers in individual compositions in AE (if you can achieve the style you want), then save each comp as an individual Quicktime file, then import your multiple QT files into FCP and use FCP to manipulate duration, transitions, etc.

i do my titles in illustrator. one the very bottom layer (it doesnt have to be the bottom, just helps me stay organized) i put a box. no stroke, no fill. at the exact size the final comp needs to be.

then when you import that into AE as a comp, everything will be where its supposed to be.

ill give that a shot.


the way that outdated mac user stated seems similar to what im doing.. there are just to many steps.. I just cant imagine that being the most efficiant way to go about this.

Perhaps you're not familiar with it, but LiveType comes with FC Studio and is amazing for doing titles - lots of presets - and already integrated into FCP

> Perhaps you're not familiar with it, but LiveType comes with FC Studio and is amazing for
> doing titles - lots of presets - and already integrated into FCP

LiveType is not a substitution for After Effects. Not even close. If he has hundreds of layers in After Effects, there is no chance LiveType will be able to handle the effects he's talking about.


www.derekmok.com

The simplest way would be to do it from scratch in AE.
Just make one text layer, find the font and size you want and then duplicate it every time you want to change the text.
You will get many layers but its still the easiest way of doing it.

You can also do it in Photoshop and import the file into AE.
The issue here is that if you want to change the font or text etc you have to go back into photoshop , change, re-save and then reload the text into AE which is unnecessary.

The text tool in After effects is no different from that in photoshop or illustrator so you gain nothing from doing it in Photoshop or illustrator first.

I dont understand why you get placement problems when importing as a composition.
If you have made the Photoshop document the same size and aspect ratio as the AE composition then the text will end up in exactly the same place on the screen.

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com