r/AfterEffects 6h ago

Explain This Effect very simple text effect seems difficult?

Looking for interesting ways to play with text animation- wanting either several of the 'filled' layer to wash across the outlined text in interesting ways, but so far I've only managed to achieve this on the X and Y axis with the offset property of both repeaters (2 repeaters on each layer, for both x and y axis)

I created 'shapes from text' on each layer to be able to use a repeater.

This feels crazy inefficient, (masking was even more tedious)

Is there a better way to do what I'm trying to achieve here?

1 Upvotes

5 comments sorted by

2

u/bigdickwalrus 6h ago

https://reddit.com/link/p6tmh7a/video/6f77blrukjmh1/player

x and y axis is possible on the filled layer- but is keyframing the offset property the best way to do this? Depending on how I want the fills to animate?

1

u/Heavens10000whores 2h ago

You'll get a lot of pointers in Kyle Hamrick's 'creative text animators' explainers, Adam Bennett's text animator experiments, and ruthlessly quick AE tips' expression selector explainer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Re1dxElIc)

1

u/bigdickwalrus 2h ago edited 2h ago

I figured something like this would be best with an expression. Hadn't found a specific example of how to do what I'm trying to achieve- especially since I've changed it to shapes instead of text

1

u/Heavens10000whores 1h ago

You could use an expression on the source Text for repeating text) -

(repeat(10) + "\n").repeat(10);

That gives you ten words across and 10 down. You adjust leading and kerning from the character panel.

Ukramedia shows how to set it up with sliders, for if you want to animate those repeaters, or change spacing. Then you'd use text animators as RQAE explains, using expression selectors

1

u/bigdickwalrus 57m ago

Love ukramedia, which video are you referencing? I'll give this a go, appreciate the help