Combustion Eye for the AE Guy
Page 6 of 7
Step 12: Finally let’s add some text to our work. Highlight the Composite layer, Right+Click and select New Layer. The New window will open once more, but this time instead of a Composite, we want to change this to Text, and give it the name Text Layer.
You can customize the size of your text layer by using a custom setting, but for simplicity sake, use the DV NTSC preset. If you turn on Transparent the background will not appear and only the text will be displayed. [an error occurred while processing this directive]If you went ahead and clicked OK before setting the duration, don’t worry we can fix this. By default the length of text clip is set to one second. For After Effects users this can be very frustrating as we are used to any new layer (solid or text) running the duration of the composition.
One way we can fix this is by highlighting the Text Layer in the Workspace, and in the Timeline Tab scroll down to the Operators properties. There you will see two elements a Paint Operator on top of an element called Footage. As I’ll discuss in a future installment, Text can be created in many ways and one of them (and probably most versatile) is through a Paint Operator. This Operator must be applied to a layer to work. In this exercise, this just happens to be a transparent solid we created.
With the Timeline Overview selected, highlight both of the right handles for the footage and paint Operators (Shift+Click) and then drag the handles to the right until it is the desired length.
Now with the Text Operator selected in the Workspace, go to the Text Controls Tab and enter your text. If there is one thing I know I am spoiled on from After Effects it is the new Text Tool. Instead of point and type, combustion requires you to do all of these steps just to create text for our project.
The one thing I really like about the Text Controls Tab in combustion though is font button. With this, you get a dynamic preview of what the font style looks like.
I used Lucinda Handwriting for this example, but feel free to use the font of your choice.
The rest of the Text controls are pretty self explanatory, and you should be able to figure out how to manipulate them on your own. I will go over text in more detail in a future installment.
Step 13: You should have a pretty good understanding of how to animate layers and properties. On your own, animate the opacity of the text so it fades in between 2:00 and 3:00. Hint: To adjust the Opacity of a block of text, you need to adjust Opacity of the text element under the Paint Operator.
Source: Digital Media Online, Inc.
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