How to Animate a Gradient Behind Text in After Effects (Part 2)

Two Keyframes Is a Complete Animation

This is part two of a short series. In part one we built the gradient and text artwork in Photoshop and exported them as PNGs. Now we’ll take those into After Effects, animate them, and export both a looping GIF and an MP4.

If After Effects has always looked intimidating, this is a good first project. The entire animation is two keyframes on a single property — and the result loops seamlessly. You can follow along with the sample PNGs from the download on this page even if you skipped part one.

Setting Up the Project

1. Create a new project

   If your interface looks nothing like the tutorial’s, go to Window › Workspace › All Panels. After Effects has several workspace layouts and it’s easy to be looking at a completely different one.

2. Import the PNGs

   Drag them straight into the Project panel.

3. Drag them into the timeline

   After Effects offers to build a composition from them automatically. Accept it — the comp inherits the images’ dimensions, 1080 × 1080 here.

Timeline layers stack like Photoshop layers — whatever sits at the top is in front. Drag the text above the gradient so the gradient becomes the background.

Getting Organized Before You Animate

Worth two minutes now and it saves real confusion later, especially once a project has several scenes.

Right-click in the Project panel and create two folders: Source for the imported PNGs, Comps for the composition. A useful way to think about the distinction: comps are scenes; source files are the assets those scenes are built from.

Then right-click the comp and choose Composition Settings to confirm the basics — 1080 × 1080, 29.97 fps, and a duration of two seconds for this one. Set duration deliberately; it’s what your keyframes will be spread across.

Keyframes, Briefly

A keyframe records the value of a property at a specific moment. Set one at the start, another at the end, and After Effects calculates every frame in between for you.

That’s the whole idea behind animation in the program. You describe two states; it produces the transition. Everything else is refinement.

Animating the Gradient

Here’s the trick that makes this look far more complicated than it is: the text never moves. Only the gradient behind it rotates, and because the text sits on top, the result reads as color flowing through the letters.

1. Select the gradient layer and press R

   That isolates its Rotation property. (Clicking the layer’s twirl-down arrow shows Position, Scale, Rotation and Opacity together, if you’d rather see them all.)

2. Put the playhead at frame zero

   Drag the blue marker to the very start of the timeline.

3. Click the stopwatch beside Rotation

   This creates your first keyframe, at 0°. The stopwatch is what turns a static property into an animated one — without clicking it, changing a value just changes it everywhere.

4. Move the playhead to the end

   Drag it to the last frame.

5. Set the rotation to 360°

   Type 360 into the second Rotation field. A keyframe is added automatically.

Why 360° specifically: a full revolution ends the layer in exactly the position it started. The last frame matches the first, so when the animation repeats there is no visible jump. That’s what makes it a seamless loop, and it’s the reason the number isn’t arbitrary.

Rotation has two fields, not one

The first is the number of complete revolutions, the second is degrees. Scrub past 360° and it flips to 1 x 0.0 — one full turn plus zero degrees.

That first field is your speed control. Type 2 for two revolutions in the same two seconds and the animation doubles in pace, still looping perfectly. Three is usually too frantic; two tends to be the sweet spot. Because the duration is fixed, more revolutions simply means faster.

If the gradient doesn’t cover the text

Press S for Scale and size it up. A rotating square only fully covers a circle inscribed within it, so a gradient sized exactly to the canvas can reveal corners as it turns. Centered text usually needs no scaling at all.

Toggle the text layer’s eyeball off to watch the gradient rotate on its own — a useful way to check the motion before judging the whole thing.

Exporting a GIF and an MP4 Together

Rendering happens through Adobe Media Encoder, included with your Creative Cloud subscription. The neat part is that one queued item can produce both formats.

1. Composition › Add to Adobe Media Encoder Queue

   Media Encoder opens with your comp loaded.

2. Set the format to H.264

   That’s MP4, already configured for streaming. Set the preset to Match Source — size and frame rate were decided in After Effects.

3. Choose an output folder

   A dedicated Renders folder keeps exports away from your source files.

4. Right-click the queued item and duplicate it

   This is the step worth knowing. You now have two entries from one render.

5. Change the duplicate’s format to Animated GIF

   In its settings, drop the quality to around 20% of original. It still looks good and the file size falls dramatically — which matters for a GIF far more than for a video.

6. Press play

   Both render in one pass, and quickly.

Which format for what

The GIF loops automatically and plays anywhere — email newsletters, websites, messages. Open it in a browser to check how it will actually behave. The MP4 doesn’t loop by itself but is far more efficient, and is what you’d drop into a longer edit as an intro.

Where First Animations Go Wrong

Changing a value without clicking the stopwatch

The most common beginner mistake in After Effects. No stopwatch means no keyframe, so the value changes for the whole layer and nothing animates.

Ending on a value that isn’t a full revolution

350° looks identical while scrubbing and jumps visibly on loop. Full revolutions only.

Animating the text as well

It’s tempting and it makes the result worse. One moving element against one static one reads as deliberate; everything moving reads as noise.

Exporting a full-quality GIF

GIF is an inefficient format. At 100% quality the file is enormous for no visible benefit. Around 20% is the useful range.

Not organizing the project

Two folders, thirty seconds. On a project with several comps, the difference is substantial.

More Free Photo Editing Tutorials

If this was useful, these go further in the same direction:

• How to Create a Composite in Photoshop — building the layered file first.
• Compositing Highlights, Shadows and Reflections — making an added element sit in the scene.
• How to Use the Select and Mask Workspace — cleaner cut-outs, which compositing depends on.
• How to Create and Use Layer Masks — confining an effect to exactly where it belongs.
• How to Make Realistic Shadows in Photoshop — the shadow that anchors an object.
• How to Use Select Subject in Photoshop — the selection engine behind most cut-outs.

More Free Animation and Compositing Tutorials

• Animating Gradients in Photoshop & After Effects (Part 1) — building the artwork this animation uses.
• How to Animate a Composite Image in After Effects — the same keyframe thinking applied to a photograph.
• Advanced Compositing with Stock Images in Photoshop — building images worth animating in the first place.

Start Smaller Than You Think

After Effects has a reputation for being hard, and most of that comes from tutorials that open with expression scripting and 3D cameras. The foundation is genuinely this simple: pick a property, set a keyframe at the start, set another at the end.

Everything more advanced is the same idea with more properties. Make this loop, change the revolution count, then try the same two keyframes on Scale or Opacity instead — that’s most of what animation is.

Related Tutorials

• Animate Photos in After Effects: 5 Easy Steps
• Color Gradients in Photoshop: 4 Easy Steps, Safe Skin
• Change Any Color into a Gradient: 4 Easy Steps