Inefficient and it leaves out a lot of critical steps. I'm trying to make this Smooth Text Animation in After Effects - After Effects Tutorial - Writing and Masking - YouTubeīut with a blocky font instead of cursive Though I don't know how accepted the answer on this and I don't think I'm using a shape layer. Offset is the percentage the 'completeness' is shifted on the path. That percentage is how 'complete' a path's line is from the attribute's name. The attributes are represented by a percentage. This can be a bit confusing even I still get this part messed up. You'll see three attributes: Start, End, and Offset. Twirl down on the Trim Paths 1 selector in your shape layer. Scrub forward to your desired start time on the timeline (I would give yourself some breathing room - don't start the animation immediately). This will add a new collapsed selector with the same name to your layer. On your shape layer, twirl down Contents and hit the little play button that says Add. Change the Line Cap to Round Cap and the Line Join to Round Join. Twirl down the shape layer until you get to the settings for the stroke. Increase the stroke gradually until you find a happy balance where the path isn't overlapping other letters or ligaments but is fully covering the type. You'll want to make sure none of your text in the underlying layer is visible before we move forward. Step 4: Tighten up and adjust the path from Step 3 Just repeat these steps and then precomp (Command Shift C) your mask layers at the end. You may have to save crossing Ts for another layer. The goal is to replicate the natural movements a hand makes when writing, so be sure to bare that in mind. Start from the left and work your way right. With your shape layer selected, use your pen tool (hotkey is G on the keyboard) to roughly trace over your text. This layer needs to be ABOVE the text layer in order to work properly. I recommend renaming the layer to something like 'Text Trim Path Mask,' but write whatever makes the most sense to you. Right-click anywhere in the layers panel and create a new shape layer.

Pay attention to the size, movement, typeface, and letter spacing of the text.

You'll want to get it positioned and styled perfectly before you move on to the next step. Step 1: Create a new text layerĬreate a new text layer in your composition. This tutorial assumes you already know how to set up a composition inside of After Effects and have already done so.

It's a fairly straightforward process, so this will be a short tutorial. Today we're going to talk about how to animate the illusion of text being drawn/painted onto the screen in After Effects using Trim Paths.

After effects text stroke