• Adobe After Effects

  text dispersing on a screen.

  Posted by Paul Rijkaard on August 14, 2014 at 11:39 am

  I am looking to do the following and need my mind jogging on how to start:

  A screen full of text (about 15 lines) approx font size 30.
  an imaginary cursor (which isn’t visible) will move through the screen as if painting in real time. The path of the cursor will nudge the text in it’s path out of the way. The action of this nudging will be to destabilise the text, keeping words whole, but rotating and repositioning. Literally producing heaps of text across the screen.

  Should I start with each word as a separate layer?

  Many thanks in advance

  Kevin Camp replied 12 years ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Walter Soyka

  August 14, 2014 at 7:56 pm

  This might be a job for Newton [link].

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]
• 

  Kevin Camp

  August 14, 2014 at 9:52 pm

  here’s an old(ish) tutorial by colin braley that shows you how to create a repel expression to have a layer (like your cursor) move other layers out of its way as it moves about.

  https://www.colinbraley.com/repel_expressions_tutorial.html

  it is not as robust as newton, but it may work for this. the expression does not do rotation, so you would need to work that out.

  also, since ae sees text layers as as being the size of the comp, you will need to create the text in separate comps that are the size of each word, or create the text in photoshop with each word as a separate layer, then import the psd as a comp choosing ‘cropped’ layers.

  Kevin Camp
  Art Director
  KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

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