Change color per character of text

[Andrei Popa]

Since you need 4 colors, you need 4 text animators. And you need 4 color controls effects on the layer so you can change colors easily. So here’s how we’re gonna do that:

Step 1. Add 4 color controls to your text layer. I named them “Color 1”, “Color 2” etc.

Step 2. Add a “Fill” text animator. Pick-whip the color to Color 1. The expression should be this:
effect("Color 1")("Color")
Then add an expression selector to your animator. Choose “Based on” ->”Characters Excluding Spaces”
Add this expression to the “Amount”:
if ( textIndex%4 == 1 ) 100
else 0

Step 3. Duplicate this animator to make 4 of them. The expressions to the other 3 will be almost the same:

2
effect("Color 2")("Color")
if ( textIndex%4 == 2 ) 100
else 0

3
effect("Color 3")("Color")
if ( textIndex%4 == 3 ) 100
else 0

4
effect("Color 4")("Color")
if ( textIndex%4 == 0 ) 100
else 0

Now you can change all the colors from the 4 color controls you placed at the beginning

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Tom Szymanski]

Thanks Andrei!

I think I almost have it.

On Step 2, adding “Fill” to text animator…sorry, I think I’m missing something, not in the syntax, in where to apply the expression. Where do I add the expression exactly? I’m not seeing a text animator, or maybe I’m thinking of something else.

Thanks!

[Andrei Popa]

You add the fill animator by clicking the “Animate” button that is right of your “Text” properties then “Fill Color” then “RGB”.
Anyway, here is a link to a project that contains such a text layer https://www.dropbox.com/t/2oMNyIjbcQ6O0wfk

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Tom Szymanski]

Thank you SO SO SO much! That worked great! I opened up your project and could see it and it made more sense.

One thing which you did that I didn’t notice at first was, the last color in the order you made it

if ( textIndex%4 == 0) 100
else 0

Where I was expecting…

if ( textIndex%4 == 4) 100
else 0

I was following your directions pretty well up until me skipping that part and the quickie project you send gave me something concrete to look at.

You’re a LIFESAVER. I had to do like 100 of these manually with various words and it took forever!

Thank you SO much!

[Robin Borchers]

Hi, this expression doesn’t work.

[Dan Ebberts]

It seems to work fine if you follow all the steps described by Andrei. In what way is it not working for you?