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Element 3D V2.2 Help Home

What's New

Installation and Compatibility

Installing Element 3D Specifications & Requirements Installing VCP model packs Updating Element from a previous version

Importing 3D Objects into Element

Importing 3D Objects Supported 3D Formats Exporting 3D Objects for Element 3D Exporting 3D Objects from C4D Object Transform and Anchor Point Settings Importing Pre-Fractured Geometry 3D Object Troubleshooting Baked Animation Sequences Exporting Animated 3D Sequences

Texturing & Materials

Building Materials in Element 3D Material Texture Slots Physical Shaders Standard Shaders Texture Channel Pop-up Environment Textures (reflection map) Reflect Mode Subsurface Scattering Wireframe Material Presets Supported Image Formats Surface & UV Mapping Animated Video Textures Normal Bump Map Creation Minimizing Texture Artifacts Pro Shaders Advanced Material Options Opacity Maps Auto Map Size Limit

Animating 3D Objects

Animation Engine 3D Object Groups Unified Render Particle Replicator Particle Look Baked Animation Options Multi-Object Mode Deform Adjusting the Anchor Point Group Utilities & Null Objects Obj Export Utility World Transform

Extruding 3D Text & Mask Shapes

Extruding Text Use Layer as UV Bevel Presets Bevel Options Tessellation Options

User Interface (Scene Setup)

Scene Setup Hotkeys Preferences Adjusting UI Panels

Compositing Element 3D

Using Depth Compositing World Position Matte Using a Mask with an Element Layer Custom Layer Maps Using Matte Shadow plane Element 3D with 3D Camera Trackers Element 3D & Lens Flare Obscuration Custom Environment maps

Camera & Lighting

Camera Setup Lighting Controls

Render Settings

Physical Environment Lighting Shadows Subsurface Scattering Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) Matte Shadow Fog Motion Blur Depth of Field Glow Reflection Ray-Tracer Camera Cutoff Tips for Large Resolution Comps Render Order & Opacity Maps Optimizing Render Settings & Performance

Sharing & Transferring Projects

Transferring Element 3D Projects and Assets Relinking missing files

Troubleshooting

Licensing Problems Model Browser Empty Plug-In Not Opening Render Problems Installer Errors Unable To Find Solution? MacOS Catalina Issue

FAQ

Element V1 Updates

Element 3D v1.6 Element 3D v1.5

Home > Extruding 3D Text & Mask Shapes > Extruding Text

Extruding Text

Custom Text and Masks

Under the Custom Layers use the Custom Text and Masks slots to choose text or solid layers with masks to extrude in Element. Go into the Scene Interface and hit the Extrude button at the top to extrude the text or mask layer. There are ten custom path slots to load text or masks into.

When you go in the Scene Interface, click on the extrusion model name and with the Custom Path drop-down choose which custom path to extrude.

To adjust bevel options click on the material, and the bevel options are available. See this video tutorial for more bevel tips: https://www.videocopilot.net/help/element/tutorial/basic/extrude_3d_text/

Extruding Illustrator Files

You can copy and paste splines from Illustrator to After Effects solids, then load that solid into one of the Custom Text and Mask slots and extrude in the Scene Interface. Make sure that text in illustrator have been converted to paths (right click on the text and hit Create Outlines). You may also have to use the some of the Pathfinder tools in illustrator to combine shapes that overlap.

Bevel Copies

Create an additional bevel and material.

Working with multiple bevel copies

Change the Bevel Copies value with the drop-down next to it, you can set it from 1 to 5. When first creating the Bevel Copy, you might not notice a change, but you will see that an additional material has been created. Click on the new material and you can adjust the Extrude, Expand Edges, ect. to see the changes. Sometimes what you may want to do is make the Extrude value smaller, and use the Z-offset to slide the text back or forward to center with other bevel copy.

Offset Mode
Relative and Absolute offset modes will change how the extrusion’s bevels will offset in their position.

Adjusting Materials for Extusions

You can add materials to objects the same as with regular models. You can build materials or drag presets to the material slots. Bevel settings appear in the material settings, but are not saved in the material settings, but rather that material slot. See Texturing & Materials for more on textuting objects.

Separating Characters for Multi-Object Animation

You can use the Multi-Object function if the text has multiple characters or if the mask has separate pieces. If it seems the like some of the letters or mask pieces are sticking together, you might need to change the Separation Mode from By Bounding Box to By Geometry.

By Bounding Box
Uses the bounding boxes created by the font or the masks to determine how objects are separated. If letters or masks are too close to each other with the bounding boxes overlapping, they will be seen as one object by the multi-object function.

By Geometry

Looks at the separate pieces of geometry to determine what are separate objects. Performs slightly slower than By Bounding Box but is more accurate with the multi-object function.

Advanced Text Animations

Using the Multi-Object settings
Check the enable multi-object switch in the Element effects control panel.

Using the Animation Engine
You could use the animation engine to animate from one array of text to a new array shape of text. You could also use it as a tool for animating a title, setting up the same text model on two groups with different positions and use the Animation Engine with the multi-object function to animate between. See Animation Engine for more info.

Auto Preset Scale & Bevel Scale

Auto Preset Scale
Auto normalizes the scale of your bevel presets. Keeps the scale the same as length of text increases. Uncheck to have more control of your bevel scale.

Bevel Scale

Adjust this to have manual scale control of all bevels applied to your Extrusion Model

Path Expand
Adjust the overall extrusion expansion.