Adobe After Effects - Best way to animate indivudual letters of a word

Author

Best way to animate indivudual letters of a word

john_walkerdia@adobeforums.com

2006-09-15, 7:11 pm

Hi!

I have a big map with the names of towns written on it as normal AE text. Now I would like to animate the letters individually. What would be the best way to do this? I know I could always type in each letter separately, but in that case it would be hard
to get the letters in right position (so that the space between letters would be right when they form words).

So is there some way to break the words in to individual letters while keeping the letters in the same position as before? I have had this same question on my mind with many projects, but now I decided to ask you experts what to do about it! Any help woul
d be highly appreciated! Thanks!

David_Wigforss@adobeforums.com

2006-09-15, 7:11 pm

Others should jump on these text questions, but my old school way would be to create 2 copies. 1 spelled out, 1 with letters on seperate layers. I'd parent the letters to a null and set a keyframe on the layers' pos so they align with the word layer. Then
you can set another key with the layers off screen or wherever, and they'll move to form the word.

Navarro_Parker@adobeforums.com

2006-09-15, 7:11 pm

YES! AE's new type tool knows what characters, words and sentences are. Check out the text animation presets to give you some idea how to manipulate them.

Of course, online help is also very...ummmm... helpful!

twister@adobeforums.com

2006-09-15, 7:11 pm

Select your text layer and choose "Browse preset" option in Effects&presets panel.Now you can preview all text animation presets in Adobe Bridge.Just double-click on preset to apply the same on your text.

john_walkerdia@adobeforums.com

2006-09-15, 7:11 pm

Thank you very much for your replies!

David, if I do it your way, I have to type in each letter separately right in order to get them on separate layers? The problem with that is that I have many words and would have to do an awful lot of typing.. (Select the text tool, type in one letter, de
select the typing and then click on a new spot and type in another letter) Or can I somehow quickly break the letters in the words automatically on separate layers in AE?

Navarro, I know about the text animators, but the problem with those are that it won't give 100% control of each letter right? I can only animate the range selector in sort of a linear way? The thing I want to achieve is that some letters of the town name
s on the map start to move and form the name of the program. Is that possible to do with the text animation tools? Remember that it is a map, so the words (town names) are spread across the whole image (they are not on the same line).

I figured out one pretty handy way to do this: I saved a still frame after I had typed in the words and then I took it into photoshop and cut the letters that need to animate in to their own layers. Then I imported that as a composition (cropped layers) b
ack in to AE. Still it's a bit work, so if there's a quicker way to do it in AE, I would be very happy to hear about it! Thank you!

Andrew_Yoole@adobeforums.com

2006-09-15, 7:11 pm

Navarro, I know about the text animators, but the problem with those are
that it won't give 100% control of each letter right? I can only animate
the range selector in sort of a linear way?

You can apply as many animators as you like to one piece of text. AND, you can apply as many Range Selectors as you like to each Animator. So you can conceivably use an animator for each letter if you like, which will give you 100% control of each charact
er independently.

If you just want a random character spread that converges into position, you should be able to modify an exisiting Text Preset to do the job easily with one Animator.

The ONLY time I could even imagine needing to cut text up letter by letter these days is if (a) you are using text that's design is not reproducable using normal font tools and plugins, or (b) if you need true 3D control of each letter.

john_walkerdia@adobeforums.com

2006-09-15, 7:11 pm

Hi!

Thank you for your help!

Andrew, if I understood you correctly, I would nee to add a selector for every single letter then and animate them all separately. In my case it would be lot easier to just have the induvidual letters on separate layers so I could quickly animate their po
sition. That is because I don't want a random spread of letters at any point, I wan't names of cities ( ie. new york, los angeles) to form form a new word. And because it's a map, the names naturally have to be on specfific locations before forming that n
ew word. That's why I don't think it would be very handy to do it with text animators, it sounds like a lot of work... But please correct me if I'm wrong!

Thanks again!

silversurfer@adobeforums.com

2006-09-15, 7:11 pm

I do not like the Text Animators in AE. I come from the "old school" where I like to use Illustrator to lay out text, break it up into individual letters each on it's own layer & bring in the Ill project as a comp. It's more work, but if you want to "cont
rol" the individual letters and not just fly them around at random, this is the way to go IMHO.

- Joey

Aaron_Cobb@adobeforums.com

2006-09-15, 7:11 pm

John, bear in mind that "animators" don't have to be animated. You can duplicate your town names then use the text selectors to select individual characters (switch the selector to "character" to select them by their index) and use an opacity animator to
turn off everything outside the selection. This is similar to your Photoshop solution, but is much more quickly customizable.

You can even use expressions to link the source text of the copies to one master text layer, and to automatically select the characters according to relative layer index. Let me know if you are interested in more detail.

Of course, to get the letters to rearrange into a new word, you will still have to move them by hand. I can't think of a way to do this efficiently with the text animators.

john_walkerdia@adobeforums.com

2006-09-24, 7:22 pm

Hi!

Thank you for your reply Aaron!

I understand now that it is possible to do quite easily with text animators. I quess I was secretly hoping that AE would have some kind of "split characters" command that would break a word in to separate layers for quick position animation :) Well, maybe
some day.

I am interested in more detail about the expressions that you we're talking about. I didn't quite follow everything, like what do you mean with "relative layer index"?

Thanks to everyone for your effort on this subject!

-stev=o@adobeforums.com

2006-09-24, 7:22 pm

One other suggestion (if the type was created as living type within Æ) would be to "create outlines" on the text layer, which will create a new layer, with pre-named maskshapes for each letter. You could then duplicate that layer as many times as you have
letters, and delete all but one maskshape (letter) per layer.

-stev=o

Aaron_Cobb@adobeforums.com

2006-09-24, 7:22 pm

John, add two Opacity animators to your text layer. On the first one, delete the range selector and set opacity to 0%. On the second one, change the range selector Advanced->Units to Index and Advanced->Based On to Characters Excluding Spaces. Set the ran
ge selector Start to 0.0, End to 1.0, and Offset to 0.0.

Now add a Layer Control Effect to the text layer. Name it something useful; I'll call it "First Layer" from here on out (substitute whatever name you choose where appropriate). This will point to the first text layer, so leave it set to the text layer you
are presently working with.

Now add the following expression to the range selector Offset:

L = effect("First Layer")("Layer");
L.index - index

and add the following to Text->Source Text:

L = effect("First Layer")("Layer");;
L.text.sourceText

Finally, duplicate the layer as many times as needed to display every character.

What you should get is a bunch of layers each with a different character displayed in its proper location. The Offset expression works by looking at the layer index relative to the first layer, so always keep the subsequent characters immediately above th
e first layer in the timeline.

You should be able to modify the source text as you see fit and see the other layers update accordingly (though you will need to add or remove layers if the number of characters changes).

To start a new word, you can duplicate the first layer, move it so above or below the first bunch of text layers,, change its Layer Control to point to itself, and then duplicate it as many times as needed. As long as the other layers are immediately abov
e the first layer in the timeline, the expressions will work.

john_walkerdia@adobeforums.com

2006-09-24, 7:22 pm

Thanks stev=o, I was wondering if "create outlines" could be usefull in this! I'll have to give that a go!

Do you happen to know if "create outlines" weakens the quality of the letters or does it somehow get the alpa straight from the letter shapes without any quality loss?

didgi.@adobeforums.com

2006-09-24, 7:22 pm

Hi
this expression gives me an error message(..no property or method named index)

L = effect("First Layer")("Layer");

L.index - index

What's wrong with it ?

Aaron_Cobb@adobeforums.com

2006-09-24, 7:22 pm

Works fine for me.

What version of AE are you using. didgi?

Aaron_Cobb@adobeforums.com

2006-09-24, 7:22 pm

I don't know why you are getting the error. Every layer has an index. Could you copy and paste the full expression here?

-stev=o@adobeforums.com

2006-09-24, 7:22 pm

hey john,
the maskshapes created by "create outlines" seem to intelligently inherit not only the shape and name of the initial letter, but also are vector objects, and remain high quality while enlarging.

-stev=o