Learn how text layers in Adobe applications offer powerful animation capabilities, including character-by-character and word-by-word transformations. Understand the distinctions between layer-level transformations and text animator properties to create dynamic, fine-tuned motion effects.
Key Insights
- Text layers in Adobe programs like After Effects feature an Add Animator button that enables users to animate properties such as Position, Scale, Rotation, Fill Color, and Stroke Color on a granular level—by character, word, or line.
- Text animators differ from standard layer transformations by allowing incremental effects like letter-by-letter movement, spacing control, blur, and character offset, supporting advanced animations such as decoder-style effects.
- Noble Desktop highlights the use of built-in Animation Presets, accessible via the Effects and Presets panel, which serve as editable templates to speed up the process of animating text elements.
So, by the way, notice the Properties panel when it comes to a text layer is actually pretty powerful. You've got your standard transform properties, like Positioning, Format, Rotation, Scale. You've got your ability to format text and paragraph level, which is nice.
And there's a little Add Animator button here. So, a lot of text layers have more options. They just always do.
Text layers and shape layers have more options such as in the Properties panel. Now, what does that mean? So, first of all, there's a feature in a lot of software, and that's Adobe, Text on a Path, where you actually make text run along a path. Photoshop has that, Illustrator has that, InDesign has that.
It's a pretty common thing, right? A lot of programs have it. That's available with text layers. You have the ability to also do this.
The Layer Controls, Position, Rotation, Scale, are for the entire layer. So, if I change the position, the entire layer is changing. However, what if I would like to animate one of those letter-by-letter, or word-by-word, or line-by-line? This is what text layers have the ability to do.
Text layers have a property. So, Text, Effects as a Drop Shadow, Transform, every visual layer has. But they have an Animate button right over there, when you open up its properties.
For the record, the same Add Animator button is right there. So, what this does, notice it says things like Position, Scale, Rotation. The difference, the things found in this menu, or in the Add Animator menu at the bottom of properties, things found in the same menu, the same menu by the way, can be applied character-by-character, word-by-word, or line-by-line.
That is the advantage. So, I could animate the position character-by-character, word-by-word. So, it's cool.
Or any of the properties, and they can be combined together. Now, Transform Properties, Color Properties, Fill Color and Stroke Color. Fill is the interior color, Stroke is the outline.
Tracking, so it's between characters. Line Anchor and Line Spacing are the spacing of, um, space of lines. Way closer together, but it's still that way.
Uh, Character Offset and Value would be like, have you ever seen, like, decoder effects in, like, spy movies and stuff? Where the characters are, like, randomly changed when they settle on something? That's Character Offset and Value animations. Uh, that's Blur. I don't have an answer.
It is Blur's thing. I don't know. It's just Blur's things.
So, it's there. So, this is how you use it. And this is the section! Adding Text Animators, page 85.
And really, it's adding text animators, but it's actually adding and animating text animators. Now, two other notes at the end of this. There's an optional bonus if you want to basically animate some more stuff.
But there's an informational thing at the bottom of page 86 about Presets. Okay. Now, I'm going to make a text Animator.
And the text Animator, my goal is to have the words, word by word, fly up and fade in. So, dig, you, no, question mark, sliding up and fading in, in word by word. However, if I didn't want to do that manually, Animation Presets.
Text. Animate In. These are presets the program ships with for free.
Like that. That will animate the appearance of text. One of them may, in fact, be the one I'm going to make.
I don't know, because they have weird names. No idea. Okay.
Under the menu, Effects and Presets, there is a command called Browse Presets. What it would do is if you have it, it opens a program called Adobe Bridge, opens the Presets folder, and you can see visual previews of them. But the previews, there's no previews in here.
It's, like, based on names. So, to be honest, fade up by words actually might actually do what I want. The presets are designed to be edited.
Presets were originally created for new users to learn the functionality of text animation. So they intended to give you some starter things so that you could then manipulate them. Then that fell apart, and so they decided to make them, like, a, here, we'll give you many presets, have fun.
Because people weren't modifying them, they were just using them as is. So, here's how it is. So, in my layer, I'm going to animate Position first.
Hello, Position. Now, how is this Position different from the layer one? This Position can be applied, again, character-by-character, word-by-word, or line-by-line. The things in Transform can only be applied to the entire layer.
That's the difference. This Position in the Animator also modifies it from whatever the original layer setting is. So, for example, Position right here, if I say 150, the text is going to move 150 pixels down from where it currently is.
So, where it currently was is whatever the layer is set to be. And then plus that value. Now, you are not going to add keyframes for the Position property.