… for Apple Motion

Tip #1450: Simple 3D Text Lighting Tricks

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Be sure to turn Environmental lighting off to get the full effect.

(I discovered this tip while researching a recent PowerUP webinar illustrating Cameras, Sets & Drop Zones in Apple Motion 5.5.)

The more I play with 3D text in Motion, the more fun I have. Here is a very quick way to dramatically change the look of your text.

• Create some 3D text, give it enough depth that you can see the edges.
• In Inspector > Text > Appearance, uncheck Lighting > Environment.
• Then, change Lighting Style and watch what happens.

For this screen shot, I set:

• Font: Optima
• Size: 300 points
• Depth: 60

Then, I applied three different Lighting Styles, from top to bottom in the screen shot:

• Dramatic Top Right
• Below
• Medium Right

EXTRA CREDIT

Once environmental lighting is turned off, if you plan to use other elements you’ll need to add lights to see them,