AfterEffects

Work with animator properties

Animator properties work much like other layer properties, except that their values only influence the characters that are selected by the animator group’s selectors. Choose Enable Per-Character 3D to add 3D properties to a text layer; this does not add properties to an animator group.

  • To add an animator group to a text layer, select the text layer in the Timeline panel, and choose a property from the Animation > Animate Text menu or from the layer’s Animate menu in the Switches/Modes column in the Timeline panel. A new animator group, along with a default selector and the chosen animator property, appears in the Timeline panel.
  • To add a new animator property to an existing animator group, select the animator group in the Timeline panel, and choose the property from Animation > Animate Text menu or from the animator group’s Add menu in the Timeline panel. The new animator property appears within the same group as the existing animator property and shares the existing selectors.
  • To delete an animator property or animator group, select it in the Timeline panel and press Delete.
  • To remove animators from a text layer, select the text layer in the Timeline panel, and choose Animation > Remove All Text Animators.
  • To copy an animator group, select it in the Timeline panel and choose Edit > Copy. To paste the an animator group, select a layer and choose Edit > Paste.
  • To rename an animator group, make sure that it is the only thing selected, and then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS).
  • To reorder an animator group, drag it to a new location in the stacking order in the Timeline panel.

Animator properties

Anchor Point
Anchor point for the characters. This is the point about which transformations—such as scaling and rotation—are performed.

Position
The position of the characters. You can specify values for this property in the Timeline panel, or you can modify it by selecting it in the Timeline panel and then dragging the layer in the Composition panel using the Selection tool, which changes to a move tool  when positioned over text characters. Dragging with the move tool does not affect the z (depth) component of Position.

Scale
The scale of the characters. Because scale is relative to the anchor point, changes to the z component of Scale have no apparent result unless the text also has an Anchor Point animator with a non-zero z value.

Skew
The slant of the characters. The Skew Axis specifies the axis along which the character is skewed.

Rotation, X Rotation, Y Rotation, Z Rotation
If per-character 3D properties are enabled, you can set the rotation about each axis individually. Otherwise, only Rotation (which is the same as Z Rotation) is available.

All Transform Properties
All of the Transform properties are added at once to the animator group.

Line Anchor
The alignment for the tracking in each line of text. A value of 0% specifies left alignment, 50% specifies center alignment, and 100% specifies right alignment.

Line Spacing
The space between lines of text in a multiline text layer.

Character Offset
The number of Unicode values to offset selected characters. For example, a value of 5 moves the characters in the word forward five steps alphabetically, so the word offset becomes tkkxjy.

Character Value
The new Unicode value for selected characters, replacing each character with one character represented by the new value. For example, a value of 65 replaces all of the characters in a word with the 65th Unicode character (A), so the word value becomes AAAAA.

Character Range
Specifies limits on the character. This property appears whenever you add the Character Offset or Character Value property to a layer. Choose Preserve Case & Digits to keep characters in their respective groups. Groups include uppercase Roman, lowercase Roman, digits, symbols, Japanese katakana, and so forth. Choose Full Unicode to allow for unlimited character changes.

Blur
The amount of Gaussian blur to be added to the characters. Horizontal and vertical blur amounts can be specified separately.