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Vintage VDU Readout Effect?
Can anyone reccomend a way to achieve a vintage ‘green vdu’ effect with text printing out letter by letter and flashing cursor (as seen in Ridley Scotts “Alien” and any old home computer from the eighties).
I’m looking for a simple way to achieve the look of a vintage computer screen, and to generate blocks of ‘code’ that appear and dissapear with a suitably distorted feedback effect.
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8 Replies
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for the text.. try adding a glow to the text layer, selecting ‘use original colors, not A and B colors.
For free fonts, try dafont.com – They have a selection of computer-like fonts, if I remember correctly.
To animate the text appearing, try using the text animation tools (twirl down the text layer and select ‘animate’. Start with opacity, and animating the ‘range’ value over time. This will make the text appear from left to right. (see AE help for more on this.. I can’t go into detail right now!)
Hope that gives you some pointers.
John -
Ultimate simplicity is to purchase one of the DIGIEFFECTS packages that contains that specific text effect. It’s elegant and direct. You might think it’s a bit expensive but you get a bunch of other timelessly classic AE filters in the pacakage. And you must consider the cost of experimenting, failing, and never really getting what you want.
Umm, I’m not at my AE machine today to tell you which of the DigiEffrects packages you need. They make Aurorix, Delerium, and Berserk.
bogiesan
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Image Lounge by Red Giant Software has this plugin. It is exactly what you need. You could achieve the effect without the plugin, but it would take lots of tweaking and extra layers and you still may never get it to look natural. I used the effect in my Texture Packs promo video (about 30 seconds in) seen here:
https://www.precomposed.com/products/texture_packs/
Instead of a block cursor, I opted for the line, however block was an option. There are many options to tweak the plugin, such as having the cursor be on the last letter, or after it, and how fast it blinks… and about 20 more. Too many to remember.
Jon Geddes
Motion Graphics Designer
http://www.precomposed.com -
Here is a tutorial on how to do it using the Image Lounge plugin:
https://www.ayatoweb.com/ae_tips_e/ae14_e.html
Jon Geddes
Motion Graphics Designer
http://www.precomposed.com -
Ah, ye Olde Image Lounge!
Yar, I got that package back when it was a Puffin product, v1.0! Never bothered to update it, thanks for the reminder, Jon.
bogiesan
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Well, they’ve given you the “simple” answer you asked for.
If you’re looking for free:
Cursor/Type – Create a small rectangle shape layer, animate Opacity on & off w/ hold keyframes and a looping expression. Set it up to move through your text as appropriate (Typewriter preset will be your friend for that text), and spend lots of effort tweaking the timing. Switch between two layers – one solid for “actively typing,” one for “waiting” between typing spurts. Or, maybe some up with a complicated if/then expression to solve that back and forth.
Code – Check out Character Offset in the text animators. Perhaps that, with some randomizing expressions would achieve what you’re looking for?
Kyle Hamrick
Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
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I just realized I mentioned expressions three times in my post, and that the nature of your question means you’re probably not going to have a high level of proficiency with those. Let me know if you plan to go that route, and I’ll be a little more specific and helpful.
Kyle Hamrick
Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
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Possibly taking liberties with the idea of ‘easy’ but this video appears to offer a tutorial on the effect.
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Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk
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