Animating text with Text effects

When changing the shape of a Bezier path over time, make sure to create initial keyframes for all four path control points; moving a control point without an initial keyframe does not move it over time. You may find it easier to animate a path by modifying the motion paths of individual control points in the Layer window.

Note: Handles appear in the Composition window only if the effect is selected in the Effect Controls window and if you are not animating text along a mask or path.

If you want to move a Bezier path across the composition but you don't want to change its shape, animate the layer rather than the path. If you want to stretch, shrink, or "wag" one side of the Bezier path while keeping the other half in the same position, move a tangent-vertex pair together. To do this, create keyframes for both by dragging the outer circle of the appropriate vertex.

Note: When animating the control points of a Bezier path, don't confuse the Bezier path shape with the Bezier spatial interpolation of the keyframes. Like keyframes for other position controls, those for the vertex or tangent of a Bezier path can be set to either linear or Bezier. The default spatial interpolation is specified in General Preferences. Spatial interpolation can be selected for individual keyframes by choosing Layer > Keyframe Interpolation.

You can apply motion blur to motion that you create with the Path Text effect. Blurring occurs on each character. Like motion blur for layers, blurring for characters is more visible when movement is quick. For example, blurring is quite pronounced when you choose negative jitter values, which produce jumpy motion.