The Most COMPLETE Lower Thirds in After Effects (and how to automate them)

Ivan Stankov

This article was written by Ivan, Creative Director at Plainly. He has over 6 years of experience in the video editing and motion design industry. Ivan is passionate about sharing his expertise with video editors, motion designers, and those aspiring to enter the field.

Table of contents

Lower thirds: the sleek titles you see during broadcasts and sports games that convey key information without stealing the spotlight. Whether you’re a video creator or a motion designer, mastering lower thirds is a game-changer. Today, we'll show you how to create them in After Effects, from basic designs to fully automated workflows that save you hours.

By the end, you'll know how to:

Design dynamic, auto-resizing text boxes.
Create advanced lower thirds with headlines, subheadlines, and customizable elements.
Automate lower thirds for use at scale with Plainly.

Let’s dive in!

1. Starting Simple: Dynamic Auto-Resizing Text Boxes

For a classic, clean look, we’ll begin with a text layer and a rectangle that auto-resizes based on the text content. Here’s how to set it up:

Create a rectangle shape layer: This serves as your text box.
Add expressions for dynamic resizing: Using the sourceRectAtTime expression, we link the width and height of the rectangle to the text layer.
Adjust padding: To avoid a cramped look, add 70 pixels to the width and 50 pixels to the height.

This setup ensures your text box automatically adapts to any text you input, saving time on manual adjustments.

2. Adding Complexity: Multi-Line Text and Alignment

Need a lower third with multiple lines of text? No problem! Here’s how to handle it:

Use expressions to manage multi-line text: Add a tweak to your existing sourceRectAtTime expression to account for multi-line input.
Align your text: Modify the anchor point in your expression for left, center, or right alignment as needed.

In just a few steps, you’ll have versatile, multi-line lower thirds ready for action.

3. Advanced Customization: The Ultimate Lower Thirds

For a professional touch, let’s add customization features that make your lower thirds stand out:

Headlines and Subheadlines: Add additional text layers for hierarchy.
Color Controls: Use a control layer to manage accent colors. Connect elements to sliders for easy adjustments.
Padding Sliders: Add sliders to fine-tune spacing around your text dynamically.

Pro tip: Use the Pins & Boxes plugin to maintain alignment when the height of one text layer changes. This keeps everything perfectly positioned.

4. From After Effects to Premiere Pro: Exporting Motion Graphics Templates

Lower thirds are most commonly used on live footage. To streamline your workflow, convert them into Motion Graphics Templates (MOGRTs) for Premiere Pro.

Here’s how:

In After Effects, use the Essential Graphics panel to drag and drop properties you want to control.
Export your lower third as a .MOGRT file.
Import the file into Premiere Pro and tweak controls without switching software.

5. Automating Lower Thirds at Scale with Plainly

Imagine needing to create hundreds—or even thousands—of videos featuring your lower thirds. Editing and rendering them one by one would be a nightmare. Enter Plainly.

With Plainly, you can:

Automate lower thirds: Set up templates in After Effects and connect them to data sources like CSV files, Google Sheets, or APIs.
Batch process videos: Upload templates to Plainly, link your data, and generate thousands of videos in minutes.
Distribute with ease: Use Plainly’s native integrations (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive) or create custom solutions with the API.

Final Thoughts

From simple auto-resizing text boxes to advanced, fully automated workflows, lower thirds are a must-have in your video toolkit. By mastering these techniques, you’ll save time, maintain consistency, and elevate your video projects.

Ready to take your lower thirds to the next level? Try Painly today with a 14-day free trial and transform the way you create videos.