Automatically assign fill color to text characters

[Dan Ebberts]

Try this Source Text expression:

letterColor = [1,0,0,1]; // Red
numberColor = [0,1,0,1]; // Green
symbolColor = [0,0,1,1]; // Blue
myExpr = "style";
for (i = 0; i < value.length; i++){
  c = value[i];
  if (c.match(/[A-Za-z]/)) {
    myExpr += ".setFillColor(letterColor," + i + ",1)";
  } else if (c.match(/[0-9]/)) {
    myExpr += ".setFillColor(numberColor," + i + ",1)";
  } else {
    myExpr += ".setFillColor(symbolColor," + i + ",1)";
  }
}
eval(myExpr)

[Dolph Kawalec]

Thanks Dan! Worked like a charm. (Didn’t realize I uploaded the wrong screenshot – hope that wasn’t too confusing 😀)

[Dolph Kawalec]

I have a follow up question, Dan.

I’m trying to animate the characters to randomly offset, so doing this on the Source Text level will only apply the colors to the original text correctly. I tried to run it through AI again to apply it to a text animator and it came up with this:

// Define colors

letterColor = [.4784, .4784, .4784]; // letters

numberColor = [.1333, .4275, .7804]; // numbers

symbolColor = [.6196, .2235, .3686]; // symbols

// Get the source text

txt = text.sourceText;

// Get this character

c = txt[textIndex – 1]; // textIndex is 1-based

// Default color

col = symbolColor;

// Test character type

if (c.match(/[A-Za-z]/)) {

col = letterColor;

} else if (c.match(/[0-9]/)) {

col = numberColor;

}

col

But I’m getting that “textIndex is not defined” again. Do you know how to make it work?

[Dan Ebberts]

textIndex can only be used in an expression for the Amount property of an Expression Selector. What are you doing with character offset exactly? You might be able to incorporate it into the Source Text expression.

[Dolph Kawalec]

The idea is to have a block of “password text” that is cycling over and over. I was hoping I could add a character offset to the text layer, but the offset is applied after the source code is affected by the expression. So the the color coding stays attached to the original text. If a letter changes to a number, it will still have the original color of the letter still assigned to it.

I’m thinking if I can apply the fill color to the text through a text animator I can run the offset first, followed by the expression for the fill colors and it should work, right?

[Dan Ebberts]

Yes, but a Fill Color animator only gives you access to one additional color. I suppose you could have multiple animators.

[Dolph Kawalec]

That’s why I’m trying to put an expression on the fill, something similar to the one that works on the source text. I wouldn’t need to animate it, I would just need it to come after the animator that offsets the text so the characters are colored appropriately.

[Dan Ebberts]

I don’t think an expression on a subsequent animator is going to be able to see the text created by the offset animator. I think it will get the original text. That’s why I was wondering about creating the offset text within the source text expression.

[Dolph Kawalec]

I see. That explains the error then. Thanks so much for your help. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to send them my way.

Cheers!

[Brie Clayton]

Thanks for solving this, Dan!