Adobe After Effects CS3 - Manual (Page 533)

AFTER EFFECTS CS3
User Guide
528
• Vertex 2 Specifies the ending vertex of a Bezier curve and the angle of a line. For circles or loops, Vertex 2 is
ignored.
Custom Path Specifies an arbitrary path. You can use a mask created in the Layer panel or in Adobe Illustrator.
Reverse Path Reverses the path.
Character controls
Size Size of the characters.
Tracking Average distance between characters.
Kerning Controls the horizontal distance between two characters. If you change the text, specified kerning is
preserved for all unchanged character pairs. You cannot use the Undo command to undo kerning changes. To change
horizontal spacing between characters over time, use Kerning Jitter Max or create keyframes for Tracking.
• Kerning Pair Specifies the pair of characters to kern. Click the arrow to move among the pairs.
• Kerning Value The amount of kerning to apply.
Orientation Specifies the orientation or rotation values of each character.
• Character Rotation Each character is rotated by the specified number of degrees from its current angle. The center
of rotation is on the point where the character intersects the path. Note that Perpendicular To Path changes the initial
angle of the characters.
• Perpendicular To Path Rotates each character so that it’s perpendicular to the path. If Perpendicular To Path is
deselected, characters always remain upright (unless rotated by Character Rotation).
• Vertical Writing Rotates each character so it’s vertical along the path.
• Rotate Roman Characters Rotates Roman characters vertically along the path; if Rotate Roman Characters isn’t
selected, only non-Roman characters are rotated.
Horizontal Shear Slants characters left or right, similar to italics. The slant is based on the point where the character
intersects the path. To slant characters from their centers, set Baseline Shift to make the path go through the centers
of the characters.
Horizontal Scale, Vertical Scale Resize the characters by the specified percentage in the horizontal and vertical direc-
tions. Text is scaled from the initial rasterization size, specified for Size. Setting the scaling percentage greater than
100 may result in blurred edges. For best results, set Size to a point size that doesn’t require scaling beyond 100% to
achieve the largest desired text size. For example, to increase the size text from 48 to 88 points, set Size to 88 and
specify a starting value for both Vertical and Horizontal Scale at 55%; then increase both scale values to 100% if you
want the text displayed at 88 points.
Paragraph controls
Alignment Specifies the horizontal alignment of the text on the specified path.
• Left Places the first character at the position specified by Left Margin; all other characters are drawn relative to it.
Right Margin is ignored.
• Right Places the last character at the position specified by Right Margin; all other characters are drawn relative to
it. Left Margin is ignored.
• Center Centers the text between Left Margin and Right Margin.
• Force Places the first character at the position specified by Left Margin and the last character at the position
specified by Right Margin, spacing all other characters evenly between. Tracking is ignored.