Animating Text Randomized (example link in post)

[Kevin Camp]

take a look at the text animation presets. in my old version of ae, in the presets>text>animate in presets there is one called ‘drop in by character’

add that to a text layer and the text should drop in character by character.

twirl down the text properties to animator1>range selector1>advanced and set random order to on.

then duplicate the animator 1 (it should create animator 2), twirl down the text properties to get to the ‘start’ property (it has the keyframes). select both keyframes and choose aniamtion>keyframe assistant>time-reverse keyframes. goto the last keyframe and adjsut the position property for animator 2 (not the layer), so the text falls off the screen, then move the keyframes down the timeline to where the text should transition off.

now the fall into place randomly, character by character and fall off in a similiar way.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[John Cuevas]

Kevin, shouldn’t there should be a way to do this with the wiggly selector too? I’ve been messing around with it, getting close to the right results but not exactly what’s seen in the video.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[Mike Flinn]

Thanks Kevin! This is useful and it almost gets me exactly what I want. I was aiming for the random position changes by character while the text is already on screen. How a letter will drop down off of the line it was on randomly. I cant seem to figure out how exactly to do this part of the effect.

[Kevin Camp]

[Mike Flinn] “I was aiming for the random position changes by character while the text is already on screen.”

i would do something like that with a wiggle expression on the text layer’s position.

select the position property and choose animation>add expression… and try an expressionl ike this:

freq = 15; // value in times per second
amp = 5; // value in pixels
wiggle(freq, amp)

edit the freq and amp values to get the ‘shake’ that you are looking for.

you can use a similar expression for the text color… using a color correction effect like exposure, you could apply the expression to the exposure property to create a flickering/blinking effect.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW