Advanced controls for the Path Text effect

Use the following controls to specify the appearance of the characters:

Visible Characters

Specifies the number of characters that appear at the current time. By creating keyframes, you can use Visible Characters to display one or more characters at a time to create the appearance of typing characters. Positive values specify the number of visible characters from the beginning of the text to the end. Negative values specify the number of visible characters from the end of the text to the beginning. Remember that spaces are characters, too.

You can also use this control with Fade Time to fade in characters. When Fade Time is 0, the next character appears when the value of Visible Characters is halfway to the next whole number. For example, the second character appears when the value of Visible Characters is 1.5, the third character appears when the value is 2.5, and so on. A Fade Time value of 0 produces the appearance of typing characters. For other Fade Time values, see Fade Time.

Note: Visible Characters does not alter the positions of characters defined by the path and other controls.

Fade Time

Specifies a range of time over which a particular character is partially visible. Fade Time works in conjunction with Visible Characters. When Fade Time is 0, each letter appears fully opaque at the appropriate Visible Characters value. When Fade Time is 100%, a particular character is displayed with greater and greater opacity as the value of Visible Characters increases between whole numbers. The exact opacity of the character is equal to the fractional part of the Visible Characters value. For example, the eighth character is displayed at 10% opacity when the value of Visible Characters is 7.10 and Fade Time is 100%; the same character is displayed at 60% opacity when the value of Visible Characters is 7.60, and so on.

For Fade Time values between 0 and 100%, the opacity of the character is defined as a range across the halfway point between whole-number values of Visible Characters. For example, when Fade Time is 20%, the eighth character begins to appear at a Visible Character value of 7.40 and is fully opaque at 7.60. If Fade Time is set to 60%, the same character begins to appear at a value of 7.20 and is fully opaque at 7.80.

Mode

Specifies the transfer mode used when characters overlap each other. The specified mode is applied only to the parts of characters that overlap. When Mode is set to Difference, overlapping parts of characters appear in black. When Mode is set to Normal, overlapping parts appear in the specified Text color.

Jitter Settings

Specify maximum amount of deviation added randomly to baseline, kerning, rotation, or scale. Higher values produce greater deviations. Positive values produce smooth motion; negative values produce jumpy motion. Movement is created without keyframes, although you can use keyframes to change the maximum values.

A specific jitter value generates the same seemingly random motion for identical text and settings. If your composition contains duplicate animated text, you can generate different motion for each instance of the text by changing a setting but making the change invisible. For example, you could add a space to a second instance of text, and then adjust the kerning so that the space is not visible. This creates an invisible change that will generate different motion.

You can specify the following Jitter options:

• Baseline Jitter Max sets a maximum distance, in pixels, that characters are randomly moved above or below the path after Baseline Shift is applied.
• Kerning Jitter Max sets a maximum distance, in pixels, that characters are randomly moved apart from one another along the horizontal axis after kerning and tracking are applied.
• Rotation Jitter Max sets a maximum amount, in degrees, that characters are randomly rotated after Character Rotation is applied.
• Scale Jitter Max sets a maximum amount, as a percentage, that characters are randomly scaled after Horizontal Scale and Vertical Scale are applied. For best results, characters should not scale greater than 100%.