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Animating a FONT to look handwritten
Hi all,
New to AE. I’m using version 6.5 (yeah) at work. We need to animate a font to make it look like it’s scripting out. Using Aharon’s podcast as a base, I was able to get the font to script out but only with a stroke. So, it looks traced.Is there a way to make the font animate with a fill?
I’m using a layer mask imported from photoshop to get the general shape of the font.
Any help appreciated. Since all we have as a last resort is to do a single frame animation sequence using Photoshop and Final Cut, I’m a little, err, uh… desperate. Heh heh.
Thanks,
Steve -
4 Replies
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What you could do, I think, is trace a mask over the font, apply stroke, and then set it to “reveal original image.” That should work. It’s probably more work than you’d like – but I can’t think of anything better off the top of my head.
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More specifically.
1) Import your text.
2) On the same layer, draw an open mask in the center of the text.
3) Apply stroke.
4) Set Paint style to “Reveal Original Image”
5) Make sure brush size is big enough to reveal the whole image.
6) Set path to “all masks” and to “stroke sequentially”
7) Set start and end points.That should get the job done.
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I’ve done this quite a bit, with pretty much 100% success, so it’s not too difficult.
All you have to do is trace along the center of the lines of text. Basically, make an open mask that follows the exact same path that a person writing it would. Use the “stroke” plugin, but at the bottom select “Reveal Original Image”. This makes the stroke path not so much “paint” on the screen, as reveal whatever is originally on the layer. This means that if your mask is drawn over transparent areas in the layer, it won’t do anything (which is usefull for crossing T’s and dotting i’s).
Set your brush size large enough to be able to get the entire line of the letters in. An easy way of checking this is, after you’re drawn your mask and applied the stroke, set “start” and “end” properties so that the stroke reveals everything, and then simply flip the stroke on and off to see whether there are any spots that it didn’t reveal. 95% of the time, you shouldn’t have to worry about changing your brush size during the course of the reveal, but if your font changes width drastically, you might have to… but usually you can get around that by tweeking the path.
Also keep in mind that handwriting is fast enough that you usually shouldn’t need to worry about every little detail in the animation.
You can always use this path again, later, to animate a pen, if you so desire.
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Looks like one on my tutorials will be quite handy for you.
You can find it in here:
https://maltaannon.com/after-effects/signature-custom-brush-tip/Enjoy.
maltaannon.com – Free After Effects Video Tutorials and more
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