[Blake Tucker]

After some intense thinking, I came up with this solution. Basically the idea of the “emerge” effect is to draw the whole letter by ramping up the fill as if it were stroke width. Since the latter ends up creating an outline with the preset, I thought you could mimic the effect by using two layers: one to fade in the filled letters, and the other to subtract the outline of the letter over the top. Here’s my fix, which doesn’t require much effort.

1) Apply the effect to your text. Duplicate the text layer in your comp.
2) On the lower layer: add an animator for fill opacity and delete the stroke width animator. This layer’s text should have fill but no stroke. (Set the animator to 0%)
3) On the upper layer: This layer’s text should have stroke but no fill. Adjust the stroke width animator so that it’s approximately a full letter at the end of the effect. Then set the mode to Subtract and Shape to Ramp Down.
4) Set the lower layer to have the upper as its Alpha Inverted Matte.

Let me know if it works for you!