Adobe AFTER EFFECTS CS3 PROFESSIONAL User Manual page 297

Set a text layer's anchor point properties
Text animators animate character position, rotation, and size-related properties relative to an anchor point. You can
use the text property, Anchor Point Grouping, to specify whether the anchor point used for transformations is that
of each character, each word, each line, or the entire text block. In addition, you can control the alignment of the
characters' anchor points relative to the anchor point of the group with the Grouping Alignment property.
Original text, then rotated and with Grouping Alignment set to Character, Word, and Line
Expand the text layer in the Timeline panel, and expand the More Options property group.
1
2 Do any of the following:
• Choose how to group the text layer's character anchor points from the Anchor Point Grouping menu.
• Lower the Grouping Alignment values to move each anchor point up and to the left.
• Raise the Grouping Alignment values to move each anchor point down and to the right.
To center the anchor point in a string of capital letters, try a Grouping Alignment value of 0%, -50%. To center the
anchor point in a string of lowercase letters, or if you're using both lowercase and uppercase letters, try 0%, -25%.
Work with per-character 3D text properties
You can move, scale, and rotate individual characters in three dimensions using 3D animator properties. These
properties become available when you enable per-character 3D properties for the layer. Position, Anchor Point, and
Scale gain a third dimension; and two additional Rotation properties (X Rotation and Y Rotation) become available.
The single Rotation property for 2D layers is renamed to Z Rotation.
Enabling per-character 3D properties causes each character in the text layer to behave like an individual 3D layer
within the text layer, which behaves like a precomposition with collapsed transformations. Per-character 3D layers
intersect with other 3D layers following the standard rules for 3D precompositions with collapsed transformations.
A text layer itself automatically becomes a 3D layer when you enable 3D properties for its characters; this occurs
implicitly whenever a per-character 3D property is added to the layer—whether by copying and pasting the Y
Rotation property from another layer or applying a 3D Text animation preset.
A per-character 3D layer is designated by a special icon
Inter-character blending and the Fill & Stroke options in the More Options property group are not available for per-
character 3D layers.
in the layer's Switches column.
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User Guide