Speedy Text

[Kevin Camp]

so you want the text to stretch out — like it’s baseline is attached to the floor, but the top stretches out as the car passes. then snap back and bounce or wobble, like jello…

i’ve done this before using a logo, cc slant and a bounce expression. you might be able to work it with a skew text animator, but cc slant should also work for a text layer… i’ll describe the method i used with cc slant.

add cc slant and adjust the floor property to be around the baseline of the text. this is the line that will remain static. then animate the slant property to stretch with the car pass, then snap back to zero after it passes.

to get the ‘bounce’, select the skew property in the timeline and choose animation>add expression. in the expression field that pops up paste my favorite bounce expression:

freq = 4; // increase to bounce faster, decrease to slow it down
decay = 2; // increase to make the bouncing stop earlier
hard = false; // set to true to make a hard bounce, like a ball on the floor

n = 0;
p = thisProperty;
if (p.numKeys > 0){
n = p.nearestKey(time).index;
if (p.key(n).time > time) n--;
}
if (n > 0){
t = time - p.key(n).time;
amp = p.velocityAtTime(p.key(n).time - thisComp.frameDuration);
w = freq*Math.PI*2;
if (hard == true) amp *= Math.floor(t*freq*2)%2 ? 1 : -1;
value + amp* Math.sin(t*w)/Math.exp(decay*t)/w
}else{
value
}

adjust the top 2 variables (‘freq’ and ‘decay’)to change the speed of the bounce and the decay to get the results that you want, but the text should now wobble/bounce to a stop.

cc slant does not do motion blur, so if you need that, you’ll need to precomp the text layer and add cc force motion blur to that precomp in the main comp.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Take a look at the Text Animation Preset Organic > Fishbait.

Change/Set the following Text Animator parameters –
Wiggles per second – 35
Skew – 70
Skew Axis – -47

Keyframe Max Amount and Min Amount from their default values down to zero over the time required for the effect.

Switch on Motion Blur for the layer and the Comp.

I think what you now have is a good starting point for your effect. Just take note that Max and Min Amounts help you to trigger the effect on or off. So, you may need one more keyframe for each of the two parameters so that your text starts from a normal state.

Take note that the settings above, in italics, are ideal for tweaking the final looks.

HTH
RoRK

Intensive AE & Mocha Training in Asia.