Scroll Text Animation
Hello and thank you for purchasing Scroll Text Animation. In this tutorial, we'll cover the
basics on how to navigate this template.
Navigating the Template
When you open the project, Final Comp should be the default composition you see. In
the timeline, you’ll see all of the compositions that make up the project. Double clicking
on any of these will bring you to the controls and text placeholders of that scene:
[Control] - Master layer where you’ll make final adjustments to your scene
[Text Placeholder] - The type of Scroll’s text placeholder (eg: Original - Text
Placeholder or Cascading Up 04 - Text Placeholder)
[Bottom Text Placeholder] - The secondary placeholder. It may be hidden for some
scenes. See Note at the end of this section.
Another way of getting to these compositions is going to the Project Panel and locating
the composition folders in “01. Edit Comps”. So if you want to edit “Cascading Scroll
01”, you open its folder >> Open Cascading - Controls, Cascading - Text Placeholder,
and Bottom Text Placeholder.
Note: Bottom text may be hidden in some scenes. To unhide them, go to the Control
layer in the “Controls” composition (eg: Cascading - Controls) >> Text Settings >> Tick
“Bottom Text on/Off” checkbox.
Edit Text
You have two types of text placeholders, Scroll Text Placeholders and Bottom Text
Placeholders.
- Scroll Text Placeholders
These will be named with the prefix of their scroll type (eg: Original - Text Placeholder,
Cascading Up 02 - Text Placeholder, etc..) and as said in the Navigating the Template
section, can be found in either their respective folders in the project panel or Controls
compositions.
When you open them, move your mouse to the regional marker(Change Text here)
section that’s highlighted in blue to see your full text. Double click on the text layer or
the text itself and make adjustments.
There are 2 blue guidelines where your text is in the preview panel. You don’t have to
follow these, but the gap between your text and these guidelines will reflect how much
of a gap your text has from each other when scrolling. It’s really a stylistic choice. Refer
to the Video Tutorial to see this in action.
- Bottom Text Placeholders
Bottom text is the secondary text. You can edit these the same as you would most
others, just double click and make your adjustments.
Note: Bottom text may be hidden in some scenes. To unhide them, go to the Control
layer in the “Controls” composition (eg: Cascading - Controls) >> Text Settings >> Tick
“Bottom Text on/Off” checkbox.
Important Note: Do NOT delete text or text placeholders.
Control Layer
In your Scene’s Composition, select the Control layer to make final adjustments.
- Text Settings:
Scroll Text Position/Size and Bottom Text Position/Size - controls the placement and scale of
your scroll text and bottom text respectively
Bottom Text On/Off - allows you to turn on/off the Bottom Text layer.
Text Gradient Colors On/Off - Overrides the initial colors of your text for a gradient ramp. Turning
this on allows you to use Text Gradient Color 1 & 2.
- Background Settings:
Background Color - As the name suggests, controls the color of your background
Alpha Background On/Off - Removes any background, making it a transparent composition.
This is good for if you want to add media underneath.
- Individual Characters Settings:
This part is slightly more technical and tedious, but I wanted to give you guys as much control
as I could. It’s completely optional, but can produce more functionality and is pretty straight
forward.
Show Character Numbers - Turns on number indicators so you won’t have to count which
character is which number when making adjustments to the scroll or shift animation. I’d highly
recommend ticking this. Be sure to untick it once you're done so you won’t render the actual
numbers (unless that’s what you want).
Note: After Effects also includes spaces as characters. So if you have a few words with spaces
the number may jump from say 10 to 11.
Guide Color - Changes the color of the number guides. This is really so it’s easier to see just in
case your number guide colors blend in with your background.
Character Scroll Animation - Controls the scroll of each character. Checkbox Ticked means the
character will scroll, untick - remains static.
Character Shift - Shifts the position of the character. This is if you want that specific character to
have an offset look. It also adds a variation to the way the scroll looks depending on your font
type.
Misc.
You can either render the Final Comp to have the scenes play out as shown in the Preview
Video or you can create your own timeline and drag/drop scenes into that Timeline. Each scene
is 7 seconds long and the project is modular.
Once you're done, you can render your project to your preferred settings.
