Creating Countdown in After Effects: Tutorial

With the After Effects editing program, you can create a countdown for your video in just a few steps. The basic principle of the procedure is always the same, but you can choose many effects, fonts and more completely individually.

How to create a custom countdown in After Effects

If you want to create a new composition using Adobe After Effects that includes a countdown, follow these steps:

1. Open After Effects and start a new composition. Alternatively, you can open a video and jump to the place where you want to insert the countdown.
2. Click "Layer > New" at the bottom, decide on a "Color Area" that matches your image resolution, and confirm with "OK". Thereby you have created a new layer for the countdown.
3. In the next step you add the countdown in After Effects. To do this, first click on "Effects".
4. Select "Text > Numbers".
5. A new window will now open. Here you can select the "Font" (link: https://tipps.computerbild.de/software/officeprogramme/schriftarten-schreibschrift-immer-den-richtigen-font-612215.html) as well as determine the text size and other parameters. Confirm with "OK" after you have selected everything.
6. You will now be displayed 0.000. To fix this, change the number of decimal places on the left to zero.
7. Navigate to "Value/offset/consecutive max" and specify the number at which the countdown should start.
8. Select the arrow on the color area and click on "Value/offset/consecutive max", then go to the stopwatch icon. Here you enter the number of seconds.
9. Slide the sliders to the desired positions and the countdown is ready.