[Dan Fredley]

A couple of other suggestions:

• You can Cmd/Ctrl+click any arrow in AE to open all child arrows in one click.
• In the timeline search bar, you can open the properties you want to see by adding a comma in between search criteria. For example, “pos, rot, sca, drop” opens position, scale, rotation and drop shadow properties.

[Dan Fredley]

Using AE’s built-in text animators might be one solution. It sounds like you could just build the text in After Effects and then tweak one of the text Animation Presets according to your needs–there are some that automatically animate words in separately.

[Dan Fredley]

There is a little symbol that looks like an asterisk–make sure that box is empty. But beware that this turns the text into a raster layer instead of a vector layer.

Make sure you don’t push the precomp scale in the main comp above 120% or the edges won’t be sharp. It’s better to make a huge precomp by increasing the size of the text layer in the precomp and keep the precomp layer in the main comp’s scale less than 100%.

Adobe help about render order and collapse transformations:
https://adobe.ly/LE7nUm

Definition and image of collapse transformations:
https://adobe.ly/NH5G9b

[Dan Fredley]

You have to precompose the text before applying the effect.

Render order for normal layers: METL (masks, effects, transforms, layer styles).

Render order for continuously-rasterized layers: MTEL (masks, transforms, effects, layer styles).

This means the effect will be applied after the transforms — so position and scale will have no affect on the effects applied to text layers, shape layers or any other layer that is continuously-rasterized. Precompose it without collapsing transformations and apply the effect to the precomp.

[Dan Fredley]

Ctrl-W for PC and Cmd-W for Mac

You have to make sure the timeline or comp window is selected first.

[Dan Fredley]

If you just want to physically move the position of keyframes left and right in the timeline try this script:

https://www.redefinery.com/ae/view.php?item=rd_Scooter

If you want to adjust the values of keyframes try this script:

https://aescripts.com/keytweak/

[Dan Fredley]

Actually here’s the script that works for me:
var myComp = app.project.items.addComp("Text",1000,1000,1,10,25);
var myTextLayer = myComp.layers.addText();

textProp = myTextLayer.property("Source Text");
var textDocument = textProp.value;
myString = "Happy holidays!";
textDocument.text = myString;
textProp.setValue(textDocument);
textDocument.resetCharStyle();
textDocument.fontSize = 100;
textDocument.fillColor = [1, 0, 0];
textDocument.strokeColor = [0, 1, 0];
textDocument.strokeWidth = 2;
textDocument.font = "Times";
textDocument.strokeOverFill = true;
textDocument.applyStroke = true;
textDocument.applyFill = true;
textDocument.justification = ParagraphJustification.CENTER_JUSTIFY;
textDocument.tracking = 50;
textProp.setValue(textDocument);

[Dan Fredley]

I think it’s because you need to declare the text string before you set all of its properties.

Cut and paste the “textDocument.text” line so the script reads:
myString = "Happy holidays!";
textDocument.text = myString;
Then the rest remains the same.

It looks like a possible type in the AE Scripting Guide.

[Dan Fredley]

Use CC Particle World–change the particle type to anything that says “Textured” then under Texture choose the texture layer you want to use.

[Dan Fredley]

Adding lights and depth of field to the scene would help.

Try this tutorial:

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/advanced_camera_tips/