Creative Dojo shows how to make recessed type in Ae, using a few effects on a single layer.

You’d think that the drop shadow can solely master an inner shadow effect in Ae. Not so! This new tutorial from VinhSon Nguyen (Creative Dojo) shows a more refined way to create a recessed typography effect in Adobe After Effects. 

The tutorial covers creating a quick clean inner shadow look, making typography or a logo cut out or recessed onto a surface. “We can do most of the work with a single After Effects layer using channels and mattes to do the heavy lifting,” VinhSon says.

“You can spice things up by adding multiple layers, changing the colors, and adding a CC Radial Fast Blur or something similar to create more natural-looking fading shadows on top of the Drop Shadow effect.”