Creating 3D Text in Adobe After Effects 

This post originally appeared in the Multimedia Tips and Tricks blog (SMDC), which was reorganized into Research Tech Tips as of September 2025. The services described in this article are still available through the Research Data and Design Commons (RDDC).

Text and video by Jonathan Famiglietti, Student Multimedia Design Center

Text is an important component of our multimedia projects, and finding new and creative ways to display text in videos is a great way to level up our projects. Adobe After Effects has a trick up its sleeve that will allow you to take your text to that next level.

In this video, discover how to give standard text a 3D effect using the geometry tools built into After Effects, and learn how to animate the 3D text using keyframes.

If you’re interested in using Adobe After Effects to create and animate 3D text, stop by the Student Multimedia Design Center in Morris Library where you can book time in our studio spaces or use our Mac classroom equipped with the full Adobe Creative Cloud Suite.