[Angel Navarrete]

I know this thread is old and people don’t like having old threads restarted. I’m posting here because I was going to ask the same question that Paul did. After reading a few of the responses though, thought better of it.

While I don’t care for how some of the responses were written, these posters make valid points. There is information and tutorials out there that discuss this issue (and others); even if many don’t seem to be discussing or showing the ‘exact’ end effect your looking for. It’s best to try and find the answer on your own at first, using the tools available to you. If after you’ve done this and you truly can’t find the answer, post your questions.

Meanwhile, after looking and playing around a little in After Effects with the ‘Decoder Fade In’ animation preset, I finally found the ‘keyframe editor’ (which isn’t what it’s called in the drop+down list). Paul found his answer, but didn’t share where he found it (or post a link to where the fix/video for this exact issue was). I’m posting here to tell anyone else that might be having trouble finding this area, because I didn’t enjoy having to sift through information and videos that took me away from my project. I realize this encourages bad behavior by “spoon feeding” people answers, but I’m hopeful and naive enough to think that many of you new to After Effects; with this same question, have tried looking for this information and just couldn’t find it, or didn’t understand what to look for.

Here’s where to look for the ‘keyframe animation editor’ field (aka: Range Selector 1 for this purpose):

If you have a text box and have already dropped the ‘Decoder Fade In’ animator preset in, select it (make sure the layer isn’t locked).
Look in the drop+down fields of your main Composition Work Area or Effect Controls info panel (mine only shows up in the main comp drop+down area … forgotten how to fix that).
You should see:

Text
Source Text
Path Options
More Options
Animator 1 < This is where you want to go …
Transform

Click the ‘Animator 1’ drop+down, from here another drop+down list shows presets and sliders you can adjust:

Animator 1
Range Selector 1 < This is where you want to go …
Opacity
Character Alignment
Character Range
Character Offset

Click on ‘Range Selector 1’; notice you have another drop+down menu:

Range Selector 1
Start < This is where you can do your keyframe edits.
End
Offset
Click the stopwatch to get the little diamond, keyframes and place them where you want to start the animation, end it, or control how fast the ‘Decode Fade In’ animation fades in.

I hope this information helps you, but as other posters have said. It’s best to sit and go through the tutorials first. It sucks because it’s taking you away from your project, but in the end it’s better because you should have obtained a better understanding of why/how you’re doing things in the AE environment.