Table of Contents
Advertisement
Last updated 12/21/2009
Slants characters left or right, similar to italics. The slant is based on the point where the character
Horizontal Shear
intersects the path. To slant characters from their centers, set Baseline Shift to make the path go through the centers
of the characters.
Horizontal Scale, Vertical Scale
directions. Text is scaled from the initial rasterization size, specified for Size. Setting the scaling percentage greater than
100 may result in blurred edges. For best results, set Size to a point size that doesn't require scaling beyond 100% to
achieve the largest desired text size. For example, to increase the text size from 44 to 88 points, set Size to 88 and specify
a starting value for both Vertical and Horizontal Scale at 50%; then increase both scale values to 100% if you want the
text displayed at 88 points.
Paragraph controls
Specifies the horizontal alignment of the text on the specified path.
Alignment
•
Places the first character at the position specified by Left Margin; all other characters are drawn relative to it.
Left
Right Margin is ignored.
•
Places the last character at the position specified by Right Margin; all other characters are drawn relative to
Right
it. Left Margin is ignored.
•
Centers the text between Left Margin and Right Margin.
Center
•
Places the first character at the position specified by Left Margin and the last character at the position
Force
specified by Right Margin, spacing all other characters evenly between. Tracking is ignored.
Left Margin, Right Margin
relative to the starting point; Right Margin specifies the position of the last character, relative to the ending point. In
path shapes, the starting point for Bezier curves and lines is Vertex 1, and the starting point for circles and loops is
Tangent 1. The ending point for Bezier curves and lines is Vertex 2, and the ending point for circles and loops is
Tangent 1. To move text across the path shape that you've defined, create keyframes or expressions for the Left or Right
margins (depending on the specified alignment). Positive values move the text to the right; negative values move it to
the left.
Specifies the space between lines of characters.
Line Spacing
Specifies the distance in pixels between the path and the bottom of the characters. Depending on the
Baseline Shift
path shape, text may appear to be better spaced if the path passes through the centers of the characters. You can set
Baseline Shift to a negative value so that the centers of characters lie on the path.
Advanced controls
The number of characters that appear at the current time. Animate Visible Characters to display
Visible Characters
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.
Note: Visible Characters doesn't alter the positions of characters defined by the path and other controls.
Specifies a range of time over which a particular character is partially visible. Fade Time works in
Fade Time
conjunction with Visible Characters. If Fade Time is 0, each letter appears fully opaque at the appropriate Visible
Characters value. If Fade Time is 100%, a particular character is displayed with greater and greater opacity as the value
Resize the characters by the specified percentage in the horizontal and vertical
Specify the margins. Left Margin specifies the position of the first character in pixels,
USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Effects and animation presets
617
Advertisement
Table of Contents
