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| Animating text is slightly different to animating normal layers and effects because you have to specifically enable animation for each text property you want to use. So while every layer has a property for position, anchor point, scale, rotation and opacity without you having to do anything, you can't see all of the options for text until you 'add' them manually. All you have to do is click on the twirly arrow of a text layer to reveal the properties, and over towards the right you'll see the word 'animate' followed by an arrow. Click on the arrow to reveal all of the parameters that you can enable. Once you choose one, all of it's parameters will be added to the timeline. I would suggest that animating text is very powerful and not for the faint-hearted. You are better off to begin with a text preset and modify it. I haven't checked to see how Bridge works with CS6, but assuming it's the same you should be able to choose 'browse presets' in After Effects, and it will take you to Bridge so you can preview the animation presets. There are loads of them for text, bound to be something there you can use. Don't overlook paragraph text, if you need to stick within boundaries. There are a few basic text tips from the half-way point of this video: http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/motiongraphicsvizfx/video/after_effects_leftovers_-_part_4/ -Chris On 16/08/2012, at 9:49 PM, Richard Green wrote: > Hi all > > I've been asked some text and font questions by a client but my use of > AE tends to be for imagery not MoGraph so I'm sure somebody here will > have better advice. One thing his question made me realise is that you > can't animate font size on a text layer, how crazy is that? OK, you > can scale but I thought text layers were supposed to unlock loads of > great typography animation capabilities. Anyhow, I'm pasting his > questions here, I feel like there's bound to be some great little > plug-in out there to handle the scaling issue but I don't look for > those kind of plugs! > >>> I have also seen that AE may have difficulty with opentype fonts. Can you >>> confirm if this is the case with AE6 ??" > > I just tried loading a couple of OpenType fonts via Font Agent Pro and > sure enough, AE6 doesn't seem to see them. Is that correct? > >>> I'm wondering if AE6 has an auto font sizing feature a bit like powerpoint >>> and if it doesn't can we use Expressions to look at this issue. I have >>> looked it up and expressions don't appear to be able to change font size >>> but you can have multiple text areas with different preset font sizes that >>> you could select and put in place depending on desired outcome. Do you >>> know any more than this? > > The issue here is that it's an interactive project where users will > input the text that ends up in the comp. So they would like to draw > out a box and, if the user enters too much text, it will automatically > scale down to fit. The only way I can see to control font size via > expressions is with ye olde Basic Text effect but this where I can > imagine there being a plug-in solution - anyone? Thanks a lot. > > --- > Cheers > Rich > > www.loopcorp.com > > +---End of message---+ > To unsubscribe send any message to <ae-list-off@media-motion.tv> > |
