Per-character 3d text properties, Creating and animating text on a path, Per-character 3d text – Adobe After Effects CS4 User Manual
Page 369: Properties
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USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
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Last updated 12/21/2009
To center the anchor point in a string of capital letters, try a Grouping Alignment value of 0%, -50%. To center the
anchor point in a string of lowercase letters, or if you’re using both lowercase and uppercase letters, try 0%, -25%.
Per-character 3D text properties
You can move, scale, and rotate individual characters in three dimensions using 3D animator properties. These
properties become available when you enable per-character 3D properties for the layer. Position, Anchor Point, and
Scale gain a third dimension; and two additional Rotation properties (X Rotation and Y Rotation) become available.
The single Rotation property for 2D layers is renamed to Z Rotation.
Enabling per-character 3D properties causes each character in the text layer to behave like an individual 3D layer
within the text layer, which behaves like a precomposition with collapsed transformations. Per-character 3D layers
intersect with other 3D layers following the standard rules for 3D precompositions with collapsed transformations.
(See “
3D layer interactions, render order, and collapsed transformations
A text layer itself automatically becomes a 3D layer when you enable 3D properties for its characters. Therefore, a text
layer becomes a 3D layer when a per-character 3D property is added to the layer—whether by copying and pasting the
Y Rotation property from another layer or applying a 3D Text animation preset.
A per-character 3D layer is designated by a special icon
in the Switches column.
Inter-character blending and the Fill & Stroke options in the More Options property group are not available for per-
character 3D layers.
Per-character 3D layers can decrease rendering performance. When you convert a layer from per-character 3D to 2D,
the animator properties and dimensions specific to per-character 3D layers are lost. Re-enabling per-character 3D will
not restore values for these properties.
You can download additional animation presets that take advantage of per-character 3D text animation from the
on the Adobe website.
•
To enable per-character 3D animator properties for a text layer, select the layer and choose Enable Per-character
3D from the Animation
> Animate Text menu or from the Animate menu for the layer in the Timeline panel.
•
To disable per-character 3D animator properties for a text layer and convert the layer to a 2D layer, click the Per-
character 3D switch
for the layer in Switches column in the Timeline panel.
•
To disable per-character 3D animator properties for a text layer but keep it as a 3D layer, choose Enable Per-
character 3D to deselect it.
that demonstrates how to use per-character 3D text
animation to animate text along a path in the shape of a 3D tornado.
together with a common workaround for simulating extruded 3D text.
More Help topics
Example: Animate characters with per-character 3D properties
Creating and animating text on a path
When you have a mask on a text layer, you can make the text follow the mask as a path. You can then animate the text
along that path, or animate the path itself. You can use open or closed masks to create paths for text. After you create the
path, you can modify it at any time. When using a closed mask as a text path, make sure to set the mask mode to None.