Adobe After Effects - Manual (Page 362)

Examples and resources for text animation
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Example: Animate characters with per-character 3D properties
Example: Offset characters
Example: Animate characters with the Wiggly selector
Example: Animate text tracking
Example: Use selectors to animate specific words
Example: Create a write-on animation
Example: Animate text with multiple selectors
Example: Animate text position with expressions
Example: Animate text as a timecode display
Chris and Trish Meyer provide a video tutorial on the ProVideo Coalition website about entering, editing, formatting, and typesetting text.
Harry Frank provides a tutorial on animating text with text animators on the Digital Arts Online website .
Aharon Rabinowitz provides a video tutorial on the Creative COW website that shows a few ways to make 3D extruded text in After Effects, using
duplicate layers or the Shatter effect.
In the “After Effects Text Tips” series of video tutorials on the Creative COW website , Aharon Rabinowitz demonstrates how to use multiple text
animators to create and fine-tune complex text animations.
Steve Holmes provides a tutorial on the Layers Magazine website that uses three text animators and per-character 3D text animation to create a
text animation.
Colin Braley provides a tutorial and example project on his website that show how to use an expression on the Source Text property to animate
text to overcome some of the limitations of the Numbers effect.
Eran Stern provides a set of video tutorials on the Creative COW website that show how to use the text animation features to create a variety of
simple animations, including some that use punctuation and other non-alphanumeric symbols as simple vector graphics elements:
Part 1
Part 2
Eran Stern provides a video tutorial on the Creative COW website that demonstrates how to use per-character 3D text animation to animate text
along a path in the shape of a 3D tornado.
Rhys Enniks provides a video tutorial on his website in which he uses expressions and multiple text animators and range selectors to animate text
as if it is being typed onto a computer screen.
Angie Taylor provides a tutorial on the Digital Arts website that shows how to use per-character 3D text animation together with a common
workaround for simulating extruded 3D text.
Eran Stern provides a video tutorial on the Artbeats website that shows how to use the After Effects text animation system as a particle system.
Rich Young collects several resources and tutorials for creating extruded 3D text in After Effects.
On the ProVideo Coalition website , Chris & Trish Meyer provide several tips for animating text in After Effects.
Toby Pitman shows tricks for using shape layers to animate text on the MacProVideo website .
Example: Animate characters with per-character 3D properties
This example illustrates how you can easily animate individual characters in 3D so that each character steps out of line and takes a bow.
1. Create a new composition.
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