Gradient text and animating characters

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

“1. How can I set gradients to text. For example I’d like to give my tekxt a liner tube like gradient.”

Not sure what this means, but you can select your text layer and apply the Gradient effect (Render > CC 4 color gradient).

Or you could create a gradient in photoshop, and it the text as an alpha matte over the gradient layer in AE. This will cut out the shape of the text on the gradient layer.

“2. Can I animate characters in the word independently? I have to animate a telephon number and sync it to speech.”

In short, it’s possible using a text animator – or you could try using one of the text animation presets that close to what you want and modify it as needed – but I wouldn’t do it that way. I usually just create seperate layers for each letter or number.

That said – here’s how you create your text animator:

– Create a Text Layer in AE

– Select your text layer and in the timeline twirl down the properties until you can see the property called Text – it should be on the first level of twirl-down.

– Next there should be an Arrow button to the right of that which says “Animate” – click on it, and choose scale from the choices (3rd choice down).

– A new Animator (animator 1, if it”s the only one in there) is created. For it’s scaleproperty (the animator’s not the layer’s), set it to how much you want the number to scale – for now lets say 150%. They all scale up.

– Twirl down Range selector, and set the End property to something low – for a phone number iwth 10 digits and 2 dashes, 6% should be about right. Only the first number should be big now.

– Set the offset to -6%, and set a keyframe.

– Then move down in the time line a second or 2 and set it to 100%

IF you RAM preview, it should animate over time, one number scaling up and then down at a time.

– You’ll probably need to set multiple keyframes there to match the audio perfectly.

– For bomus points, twirl down the Advanced twirldown, and play with the shape property, using something other than square to get a little more control over the text animation curve.

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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
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[B_alen]

Thanks for the animator advice. I think this is what I was looking for.