Efficient use of text animators/range selectors?

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

If I understand correctly, you want the first line revealed, stop for a while, then reveal the second and third, stop for a while, etc?

If so, you only need one animator with one range selector (set to lines and index) and you only need to animate “start” in the range. When you want it to stop, copy the last keyframe and paste it two or three seconds later, then resume the animation (using hold keyframes wouldn’t work because you would get jumps in the values).

You don’t need to animate the opacity. The animator/selector system is deisgned so that as characters (or words or lines) go from a selected state to deselected, the animator properties’ values (like opacity, or position, or fill saturation, etc) react according to the intensity of the selection. So, if you just set Animator Opacity to 0, the lines will all have zero opacity when they start, but will become opaque as the start of the range goes from line 1 to line 2, etc. When the selector starts in line 6 and ends in line 6, no line is selected, so no line has an opacity of zero.

Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe

[Daniel Baars]

[Adolfo Rozenfeld] “If I understand correctly, you want the first line revealed, stop for a while, then reveal the second and third, stop for a while, etc?”

Sorry, I should have described my wishes more precisely…

I want the first line revealed, then reveal the second and third line TOGETHER (they both fade in at the same time and speed) and then the same for the fourth, fifth and sixth lines.

Daniel Baars

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

I think in that case, yes, the solution you came up with would work just as well as other possible solutions.

Dave’s solution is an entirely different route. No better or worse. I guess it would take more or less the same time to set up, so it’s up to you.

Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

You could have achieved the same result with only One Animator and three Range Selectors.

You will require multiple Range Selectors if you want to affect your text string in a non-linear way. In your example, having two lines appear simultaneously is an example of a non-linear result. Another example is if you wanted line 3 to appear and then followed by line 6 etc.

You will require multiple Animator Properties only if you want to affect different Animator Properties with different Range Selectors.

All this of course assumes that you aren’t using one of the two methods that give you a wiggly result.

HTH
RoRK

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[Daniel Baars]

I am intrigued: could you elaborate on what settings you would use to make my example work with one animator and three range selectors? I tried it but could not figure it out…

Many thanks to everyone who has responded to my question!

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

The first Range Selector selects the first and second lines. The second Range Selector selects only the third line. The keyframes for selecting the second and third lines should be synced so that they appear together. And the third Range Selector selects lines 4 to 6.

HTH
RoRK

broadcastGEMs – AEPro Volume 02 (Professional Adobe After Effects Project Files – Now Available).

Adobe After Effects Training in South East Asia.

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Now that I’ve written it out, I see that only two Range Selectors are required. The second Range Selector should be able to select line 3 in sync with the first Range Selector when it selects line 2. Thereafter, it should be easy to keyframe the second Range Selector to continue selecting lines 4 to 6.

HTH
RoRK

broadcastGEMs – AEPro Volume 02 (Professional Adobe After Effects Project Files – Now Available).

Adobe After Effects Training in South East Asia.

[Daniel Baars]

[Roland R. Kahlenberg] “Now that I’ve written it out, I see that only two Range Selectors are required. The second Range Selector should be able to select line 3 in sync with the first Range Selector when it selects line 2. Thereafter, it should be easy to keyframe the second Range Selector to continue selecting lines 4 to 6.”

Hi Roland, thanks for this. I am sure you are right but I haven’t been able to get it to work.

The first two steps work:
1 – Range selector 1, start 0, end 2. Animate start to go from 0 to 1. First line fades in.
2 – Range selector 1. Animate start to go from 1 to 2.
Rang selector 2, start 1, end 6. Animate start to go from 2 to 3. Second and third lines fade in simultaneously.

I get stuck on step 3 (line 4-6 fade in simultaneously). I can use the second range selector to fade in line 4 but then I cannot get around thinking I need another two range selectors to fade line 5 & 6 to fade in at the same time as line 4.

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I didn’t know that you wanted lines 5 & 6 to fade in together.

The second Range Selector should also select line 5 and then use another, a third Range Selector, to select line 6 so that it syncs with the appearance of line 5. It’s really identical to how you got lines 2 and 3 to appear together by using two separate Range Selectors.

So, the solution would entail the use of One Animator Group with Three Range Selectors.

Having said all this, I now wonder if you could have just done this with separate text layers where each text layer has either a single line or two lines. Then just use each layer’s Transform opacity and not having to bother with the Text Animators.

If you read my earlier post on when to use multiple Animator Groups and Range Selectors, you’ll have a better idea in terms of looking for a solution.

The Text Engine works in a linear fashion, one after another. Having two items appear together is a non-linear movement. Hence a new Range Selector is required under such a situation. If you wanted line 2 to appear followed by line 4, then you also need a new Range Selector for line 4.

HTH
RoRK

broadcastGEMs – AEPro Volume 02 (Professional Adobe After Effects Project Files – Now Available).

Adobe After Effects Training in South East Asia.