Animating text to appear over time– Animating Text

Nov 22, 2022

Animating text to appear over time– Animating Text

You want the letters of the location—ISLA MUJERES—to flow organically onto the screen under the activity title. The easiest way to do this is to use another text animation preset.

1. Go to 5:00 in the timeline. At that point, the title has finished scaling to its final size.
2. Select the LOCATION layer in the Timeline panel.
3. Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+O (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+O (macOS) to jump to Adobe Bridge.
4. Navigate to the Presets/Text/Animate In folder.
5. Select the Raining Characters In animation preset, and watch it in the Preview panel. This effect works well to reveal the text gradually.
6. Right-click or Control-click the Raining Characters In preset, and choose Place In Adobe After Effects 2024 to apply it to the LOCATION layer, and then return to After Effects.
7. With the LOCATION layer selected in the Timeline panel, press UU to see the properties modified by the animation preset. You should see two keyframes for Range Selector 1 Offset: one at 5:00 and one at 7:15.

Note

The Raining Characters In preset changes the color of the text, which is fine for this project.

The U key, sometimes referred to as the Überkey, is a valuable keyboard shortcut that reveals all the animated properties of a layer. Press it once to see the animated properties; press it twice to view all modified properties.

You have a lot of animation to fit into this composition, so you’ll speed up the effect.

8. Go to 6:00, and then drag the second Range Selector 1 Offset keyframe to 6:00.

Tip

Press the Shift key while you move the keyframe to ensure it moves to the current time.

9. Select the LOCATION layer, and press U to hide the modified properties.

10. Select the FishSwim tab in the Timeline panel to make that timeline active, and then go to 6:00, if you’re not there already.

11. Use the Selection tool () to move the LOCATION layer so that ISLA MUJERES is right-aligned with and just below Snorkel Tours.

12. Deselect all layers. Drag the current-time indicator across the time ruler from 4:00 to 6:00 to see the letters fall into place. Then save your work so far.

Animating type tracking

Next, you’ll add the company name and then animate its appearance using a text animation tracking preset. By animating tracking, you can make words seem to expand outward as they appear onscreen from a central point.

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