Now currently, it looks like we almost have a magnifying type effect going on here. There is a very sharp transition between the edge of the range selector and the original characters and the affected characters in the middle. Well this is where we then look at the advanced settings underneath the range selector properties here in the timeline.
If we scrub down underneath the word offset, you will see the advanced menu. If you drop this down we can see a few different options. Now first off you have the unit now we are basing it currently on an index number of characters as supposed to a percentage so we can see that the start and end points are actually the number of characters.
And currently our selection is based on characters but it could be on characters excluding spaces or even words, or entire lines which are very handy if you are animating complete paragraphs of text. You can get some wonderful effects this way and there are actually really fun examples of that in my after effects essential series.
Now a little bit further down it is the most important one we are looking at to start with, the shape of the transition itself. Currently it is set to square and that is exactly what we are seeing here, a very sharp square edge transition from the original to the affected characters.
Well let us come down and choose smooth for a second and have a look at the completely different effect we are now seeing. The transition change between the original and the affected text is now much greater and after effects is easing that change up into the center of the range selected area and easing it back down again as it reaches the right hand side of it. So there are effectively two transitions going on here, original to affected and back down to original again.
Now that looks cool in itself, almost looks like it is slightly 3D, but the even cooler part is if you now adjust the offset value and scrub that back and forth, the text now has a much more organic slightly elastic feel to it because there is a much smoother transition being applied, and this in itself is just a wonderful animation concept that you can really apply to absolutely anything.
So this is all based around the shape itself and there are different types of shapes that after effects give us. Now you have seen square and smooth, the round option is a much more even transition from slightly affected at this end to completely affected in the middle. There is not really an ease that gently starts the scale of the text, centers it and eases it out through the center, and then eases it back in again at this end. It is quite simply an elliptical form that this text is taking now. So it did effect in itself but the smooth one I think is actually a little bit better in most cases.
Now you also have a triangle and as the name suggests, it goes very much in a linear form from the original shape here in a straight line up to fully affected in the center and back down in a linear form to the original size over here. So again there is not really any smoothing or gentle adjustment of the text, it is actually quite a linear function.
Now let us just go back down and choose round again for a second, because another really cool option down here is the randomize order function. We have specified the overall shape and number of characters selected and the amount of change that is being applied, but currently that transition is being applied smoothly through the range selector that we have got.
Well after effects allows us to randomize the order of those characters so even though they are all selected, it will actually randomize which ones gets scaled at which time. So if you go ahead and turn randomize order on and now scrub back and forth the offset value, you will see a completely different effect and again with this tracking and scale applied to it, it is like every single character has its own position animation applied to it, but it does not. It is one simple property being scrubbed back and forth through a selection of text.
This really again makes text animation wonderfully alive and it is incredibly easy to achieve.
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