Chris and Trish Meyer have shared another After Effects Tips and Tricks column at Artbeats, this one on Integrating your text into an underlying surface through the use of various Blend Modes, Luminance Mapping, and Displacement Maps. Handy tips. Here’s a snippet:

“Although modes provide a nice start, after a great initial impression you start to realize that the text, logo, or other image still has clean, sharp outlines - hardly realistic if you’re trying to create a more world-weary look. The next step is having the layer underneath appear to erode or displace the image on top. Both tricks are easier to control if you create layers for your “heroâ€? image and the texture underneath that are the same size (normally, the size of your video frame) – this avoids scaling and alignment errors that may occur with some effects. In After Effects, you can do this by creating “pre-compsâ€? (nested preliminary compositions) for these layers. The erosion trick requires making a copy of your bottom layer, and placing it on top of your hero layer (our text in these examples). In After Effects, use this copy as a luminance matte for the text; other programs have effects that allow you to use one layer as an alpha channel for another. If the result is too faint, apply a Levels effect to the copy on top, and play around with its white and black points plus gamma to make the matted text as opaque or as eroded as you want. This technique is particularly good at making text appear to be worn away from the raised surfaces of the layer underneath.”