How to Create a Curved, Extruded Logo

In this tutorial, we will be creating a curved extruded logo which is based on the Videohive project Curved Chrome Logo.
We will be going through a technique to create the curve effect with
the help of masks. Additionally, we will use few expressions and some
minor tricks to control the overshooting effect, extrude, and shadow
with the help of only a few keyframes.

1. Creating the Base of the Project

Step 1

Create a new composition. The comp should be 1920×400.

Step 2

Insert your logo.

Step 3

Make another composition with the same Height and Width.
Name it Logo + Stroke.

Step 4

Now insert your Logo comp in this composition and make a copy of
it.

Step 5

Apply Fill and Simple Choker effect on the bottom Logo
layer and use the following settings.

Step 6

Now right click on the bottom Logo layer, go to Layer Styles and
add Gradient Overlay.

Step 7

Use the following Settings for Gradient Overlay.

Click on Edit Gradient option to apply different levels of
color on it.

Step 8

If you solo the bottom layer, you will see something like this.

Enable both the layers to see the edges of the logo which I
created in step 5 with Simple Choker effect.

2. Creating a Curved Extrude in the main
composition

Step 1

Create a Full HD composition.

Step 2

Insert Logo+Stroke comp in this composition.

Rename it to Logo1.

Step 3

Create a new Adjustment Layer and rename it to
Controller. Layer > New > Adjustment Layer.

Step 4

Apply two Expression Controls on this Adjustment Layer.
Slider Control
and Color Control.

Step 5

Rename these two Expression Controls to Curve Depth and Extrude Color.

Step 6

Now select the Logo1 layer and double click on the
Rectangular Mask option to create a mask on it.

Then click on Shape to bring Shape Options. Now the initial
values of Left and Right were and 1920
Respectively. I changed them to -1000 and 2920 to extend the
mask on X axis only.

You can see now that the mask is bigger than the layer on the X
axis
.

Step 7

Duplicate the Logo1 layer and bring on the Position
settings by pressing P while the layer is selected.

Step 8

Alt+Click on the stop watch to insert an Expression which
will help us to create a Curved Extrude effect.

Step 9

Now insert this Expression in the Expression panel.

offset=thisComp.layer("Controller").effect("Curve
Depth")("Slider")*-1;
p=thisComp.layer("Logo1")
offsetInterval=Math.abs(index-thisComp.layer("Logo1").index);
[p.position[0],p.position[1],p.position[2]+(offset*offsetInterval)];

The above script is connected to the Expression Control Curve
Depth
which will offset the layer from Logo1 by 1 pixel.

Step 10

Create 100 copies of Logo1 layer by duplicating it.

Step 11

Create a new Camera.

Step 12

If you rotate the logo, you will see that there is absolutely no
Extrude on it.

This is because the pixel depth value is connected by the Curve
Depth which is Zero in this case.

Increase it by one pixel.

You should see the Extrude now because each layer is separated by
1 pixel in Z axis.

Step 13

Bring on the Mask options of the Logo100 layer and use
the following settings and solo it to see the preview.

Step 14

The reason I did this is to get a thin line of the logo.

I kept on decreasing the value of Mask Expansion with each
layer which helped me to achieve the desired effect.

You can see that the value of Expansion is decreased by 3
in each layer from 100 to 86.

From 85 to 63 the value is separated by 2.5 per
layer.

From 62 to 54 the Expansion value difference is 2 in
each layer.

From 53 to 32 the difference is 1.5 in each layer.

In all the remaining layers the Expansion value difference
is only 1.

Step 15

You can see the curve effect on the logo because the mask kept
decreasing over the layers in Z axis.

Here is a side view of the logo.

While taking a closer look, you can see the top edges of the logo
are not Extruded while the central part is Extruded.

This is also one reason to use Logo comp with small Height
value. The Mask Expansion value of bottom layers are almost 0 and
the above ones have bigger value than the bottom ones which cuts off
a small part of the logo from the edges thus faking a curve effect.

Step 16

Change the logo to see if it works with everything.

You should see something like this

3. Controlling Shadow, Extrude Color, and Overshooting Effect

Step 1

Now to control the Extrude color, Lock the Controller
Layer
Panel.

Step 2

Open the Logo+Stroke layer and connect the color of the
Fill effect with Extrude Color.

You should see something like this.

Step 3

Change the color to see if everything works fine.

You should see green shaded sides.

Step 4

Duplicate the Logo1 layer and rename it to Shadow.

Step 5

Apply Fill and Fast Blur effects with the following
settings.

Step 6

Make a new Solid and name it BG. This will be used as
the background to see the shades and shadows properly.

Step 7

Put BG layer under all the remaining layers. Also duplicate the
Shadow layer.

Step 8

Apply CC Radial Blur effect on Shadow 2 layer with
the following settings.

You should see something like this:

Step 9

To make an Overshooting Extrude effect, it is important
that the Extrude and Shadow react the same way. To do this, connect
the Amount Value of CC Radial Blur to the Curve Depth
effect on the Controller layer. Alt+Click on the Amount
of CC Radial Blur and insert the following Expression.

thisComp.layer("Controller").effect("Curve
Value")("Slider")*7.5

I Multiplied the Expression with 7.5. Which means if the value of
Extrude is 1, the value of shadow will be 7.5 to match up with the
density of Extrude.

Step 10

To make an Overshooting effect, Make few Key frames
on the Curve Depth Value.

Here are the values I used for the demo.

Step 11

Then Alt+Click on the stop watch and insert the following
Expression.

n = 0;
if (numKeys > 0) {
n =
nearestKey(time).index;
if (key(n).time > time){
n--;
}
}
if
(n == 0) {
t = 0;
} else {
t = time - key(n).time;
}
if
(n > 0){
v = velocityAtTime(key(n).time-
thisComp.frameDuration/10);
amp = 7.5;
freq = 1.5;
decay =
2.0;
value +
(v/100)*amp*Math.sin(freq*t*2*Math.PI)/Math.exp(decay*t);
}else{
value;
}

This expression is used and shared by a user on Vimeo. Here is the
link to the expression.
Credit goes to its due authors for creating this amazing Overshooting
Expression.

You may want to play with the values of amp, freq and decay. The
distance between the Key frames and the value of Curve effect will
also affect the Overshooting effect which you can see from the
preview video.

Step 12

There is one more interesting thing that you can do. You can put a
negative value for the Curve Depth and you will see a Reverse Curve
Extrude.

You should see something like this.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to create a curved extrude effect
with the help of the mask and its expansion value. We decreased the value of the expansion with
each layer to achieve a nice looking curve. Additionally, we learned
how to achieve an overshooting effect with the help of a little
script and got some different looks with the help of our controller
layer.

Note: You can play with your own mask settings to get a
unique
curve effect. Just change the values of Mask Expansion accordingly in
all the layers to see what works best for you.

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