Light/Text effect

[Kuaishou]

hi…u need a 3rd party plug in like particular from trapcode…a tutorial from andrew kramer discribes step by step on how to achieve these ‘swirlies’ as he calls it…to do the text write up u probably need to type the text and trace these lines over it…it takes abit of time but u should b able to do it after watching the tutorial…andrews stuff can be located in videocopilot.net along with some other cool tutorials of other effects…hope it helps…cheers…merv

[Somethingrandom]

Yeah I had just watched that tutorial when I made the post, however I’ve had this idea before I’d seen the ipod advert or the tutorial so I guess that’s why the post was influenced by it the way it is.

But the idea I had isn’t the same, it’s similar and I probably could get the effect I’m looking for by doing what you suggested but I can’t help think that there must be a simpler way. I’ll try and describe the effect I want when my mind isn’t so influenced by the ipod advert. Basically I want to have the text appear letter by letter as if someone was writing it. I want the style of the text to appear to be handwritten and for it to be appear to be some sort of light, similar to that of the ipod advert.

I think the first option is easy to achieve, but atm I just know how to do that with single none joined text like a sort of type writer effect. I think I could solve the handwritten issue by the choice of font. But I’m not sure how I could link all three aspects together to get the effect I want.

[Kuaishou]

hi using the tutorial method u can use any fonts with any amount of words in a sentence…but i think u still have to animate the write-on effect…if u need the light to stop after each letter/word and begin in the next letter/word u need to play with the opacity in particular…maybe im misunderstanding what effect u r trying to achieve…lol…do u have a reference i could look at in a form of a still pic?… :)…cheers…merv

[Somethingrandom]

Ok I’m glad you’ve made me think about this some more because I needed to sort out what was in my head lol.

I’ve found this picture which is pretty close to what I want.

It isn’t perfect but it’s a decent example. Ok, so basically forget about flying orbs and light trails, after hard consideration and making a quick sketch of the scene it wouldn’t work anyway. Unfortunately I can’t find the advert online or even a picture of it but I still want the effect the flying orbs/light trail leaves. It’s glowing text, but unlike the picture I’ve linked you to it’s not light coming from the back ground past normal text, the lettering itself is made of light and also has a glow emitting from it.

So if you look at the picture, the font isn’t one I would use, however it is joined up. So if you can picture this; the audio track has a kind of monologue and I want to have the words appear letter by letter as they are spoken, ideally joined up for the style of the piece and they would be made of this light I’m trying to describe.

I really hope this hasn’t confussed you more as I kind of have changed my request a bit, sorry, lol. Hope you can see the bigger picture I’m aiming at. Thanks for your input.

[Graham Quince]

I’d personally do this using a mask/path and Stroke.

Trace over your text with the path tool. Then apply Stroke. Animate the End property and your text should appear in the manner you wanted. Hide your original text layer, add Glow and mess with the transfer modes and you should get the effect you’re looking for.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Kuaishou]

hi…sorry for the late reply…yup graham’s method seems to work nice…cheers…merv

[Somethingrandom]

Great tips guys. I followed the creating a signature video tutorial by Aharon Rabinowitz and applied what you both said. To see if I was capable of achieving it I used a font to trace but I could even use my own handwriting to add that little something extra to the project. I used the glow effect and after playing with the settings I was able to make the text look like it was a light source generating light with it’s own luminance. I’m quite please with it but I think I’ll try adding some other effects to get it just the way I imagined it.

Thank you both.

Also, instead of starting a new post, there was something I wanted to know which is directly linked to this post now. When I made my first two words I made them as their own project, I then tried to ‘get/put’ them into my main project, I had difficulties. I think this is like an AE 101 thing but how do I create things in one project and then bring them into another and it still be completely editable as if I’d actually made it in the new project. Because when I tried the best I could come up with was to copy and paste and when I did that the whole thing merged into one file/layer that was called [Original Source Deleted] so I kind of know I’m doing something wrong…

[Graham Quince]

Hmmm copying and pasting usually works for me. You can drag one composition into another, but then you have to go back to the original to edit it.

Are you sure you were copying the layer you wanted? it is possible in After effects, (i’ve done it on a number of occasions) to accidently have something else highlighted.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Somethingrandom]

I understand what you mean Graham because it’s not just AE I’ve done that in, it’s not a hard mistake to make lol. But what I meant was copying from project to project. Copying composition to composition works fine for me. First I tried to open two projects in AE at the same time but I soon found out you can only have one project open at a time and this is why I was struggling to copy over what I needed. But I’ve kind of answered my own question after tinkering around in AE for a while I found I could import the project into my main one and from there it was simple to copy over the effect from composition to composition.

Thanks once again to you all, appreciate it.