Create an Elegantly Handwritten Text Reveal
Tutorial Details
- Program: After Effects, Trapcode Particular, Trapcode 3D Stroke
- Difficulty: Intermediate
- Run Time: about a half hour
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
In this tutorial you will learn how to animate a handwritten text sequence with ink bleeding through the paper to create an elegant old-world style title reveal.
Optional:
Trapcode Particular (download the trial version here)
Trapcode 3D Stroke (download the trial version here)
Stock Photos:
We encourage you to use your own images but if you want to use these exact images you can get them here: Fountain pen,
Old Paper
Step 1
First of all import the assets. Inside after effects go to File>Import>File. A window will open. Search for fountain-pen.psd, leave Import As: Footage and click Open. A new window will open. Flag Choose Layer and change Footage Dimensions to Layer Size. This will import the pen cropped so there is not much space around it and easier to work with later on. Do the same for paper.jpg except there will not open a second window because it is no psd file.
Step 2
Create three compositions. One called text, the other masks and the last final comp. Go to Composition>New Composition, name it and choose the settings you prefer. Below you can see which one I used. For the purpose of this tutorial it doesn’t really matter which one you choose.
Step 3
In this case we want to write with black ink so change the backgroundcolor of the text composition to white if it isn’t allready. Make sure you are inside the text composition. Go to Composition>Background Color and change the color to white. Do the same for the masks composition
Step 4
Inside the text composition go to Layer>New>Text to create a new text layer. Type some text and with the layer selected choose a font you like. The font I used in this example is Freebooter Script (you can download it here). If the Character window is not present go to Window>Character. A menu will appear where you can change the font, size, color, etc. Leave the color to black, because we want to mimic the look of ink. Size of the font depends on the size of the composition and text layer. In this example I used194 px.
Step 5
With the textlayer selected go to Edit>Duplicate and do this two times so you have three identical layers. Now add some effects to let the text look more like ink. With the top textlayer selected go to Effect>Color Correction>Tint. Map black to a dark gray.
Step 6
To the same layer ad another effect. Go to Effect>Matte>Matte Choker. Inside the effect controls panel use these settings:
Step 7
Add the last effect to the same textlayer. Go to Effect>Stylise>Roughen Edges. Change the settings to these:
The text from the top layer should look like this now:
Step 8
Now add a effect to the second textlayer. With the layer selected go to Effect>Matte>Matte Choker. Change the setting to match these:
The text from the middle layer should look like this now:
Step 9
No add some effects to the bottom textlayer. With the layer selected go to Effect>Matte>Matte Choker. To add the last effect go to Effect>Stylise>Roughen Edges. change the settings of these two effects to match these:
The text from the bottom layer should look like this now:
Step 10
Now you’ve added all the effects change the blendmode of the top and middle text layer to Color Burn:
With all three layers visible the text should look something like this:
Step 11
Now drag and drop fountain-pen.psd into the text composition. It comes in fairly big. Scale it down to about 83 percent. Move the anchorpoint from it’s center position to the tip of the pen with the Pan behind Tool so the pen can rotate from it’s tip:
Flag the fountain-pen.psd layer as a 3D layer and change the value of the X rotation to -10,0, because later on we create a shadow beneath the pen on the paper:
Step 12
Now it is time to trace the letters with the pen like it is writing. Go to the first frame in the timeline, set a key for position and Z rotation, go a couple frames further, change position and Z rotation if necessary, and so on.
Step 13
Copy a textlayer and paste it into the masks composition. Now we start drawing the masks to reveal the text with later on. Go to Layer>New>Solid. The color doesn’t matter. Duplicate this solid untill you have seven of them. These are the layers where the masks are drawn on. Hide all the other mask layers but leave one visible. With the first solid selected go to Effect>Trapcode>3DStroke or you can use Stroke from inside after effects (Effect>Generate>Stroke). Do this for all the seven mask layers. The reason why I use 3DStroke is because it is possible to taper the ends of the stroke which is not possible with after effect’s build in Stroke. Use the Pen Tool to draw the first mask for the first letter (after adding the Stroke effect, otherwise the solid will have the color it had when initially created and the text will not be seen underneath the solid). Make sure the textlayer is beneath all the solids/masks.
Just to see the mask good change it’s color to a bright one. Make sure you can’t see parts of the text when drawing the mask. So change it’s thickness to when the letter is not seen anymore. Also make sure that a mask never crosses a part of the text when moving it’s position. So when te pen is lifted make a new mask. For this example there are seven masks in totall. Go on untill you traced all the letters. When you’re done delete the reference text layer. It won’t be needed anymore.
Step 14
Copy the animated fountain-pen from within the text composition and paste it into the masks composition, because now it is time to animate the masks or better to say animate the (3D)strokes. The animated fountain-pen layer will be used as a reference to animate the strokes. With the fountain-pen layer on top of the masks Start animating the End positions of the masks so to match the position of the pen tip.
If you use Trapcode’s 3DStroke instead of Stroke from after effects you may also animate the End Thickness to get a nice bleeding of the ‘ink’.
When the masks are animated you can delete the fountain-pen reference layer from within the masks composition.
Step15
Drag and drop the masks composition into the text composition and change it’s blendmode to Stencil Alpha.
Now, when you scroll through the timeline you see the text is revealed by the masks composition.
Step 16
Copy the fountain-pen layer from within the text composition and paste it into the final comp. Now delete the fountain-pen layer from within the text layer. Duplicate the fountain-pen layer and change the X rotation from the bottom layer to 0. This is the layer which will act as shadow layer.
Step 17
Drag and drop paper.jpg into the final comp beneath the pen layers. It should look like this:
Select the bottom pen layer and go to Effect>Color Correction>Levels and change Output White to 0.
Turn of the top pen layer and it will look like this:
Step 18
The edges from the shadow are a bit to scharp. Go to Effect>Blur&Sharpen>Gaussian Blur. Change it’s Bluriness value to about 15. Set the opacity of the layer to 80%.
It will look like this now:
Step 19
Drag and drop the text composition into the final comp. Duplicate the text composition and change the blendmode from the top composition to multiply and the bottom one to classic color burn.
Step 20 (optional)
Go to Layer>New>Solid. With this layer selected go to Effect>Trapcode>Particular. Set it’s blendmode to classic color burn. Below are the settings for Particular:
Step 21 (optional)
With the layer selected which holds the Particular effect go to Effect>Matte>Matte Choker. Add another effect. Go to Effect>Stylise>Roughen Edges. Below are the settings:
Animate Choke from the Matte Choker effect to let Particular ‘bleed’ through the paper. Set a keyframe at 3:22 for Choke at a value of 127. At 6:10 set a keyframe of value 65.
Step 22
At last turn on the motion blur for the two pen layers.
The final effect looks like this:
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By Jurrien Boogert
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Definately looks cool. More video tutorials needed though :)
Please do video tutorials!
well done, nice tut instructif
looks cool.
i like the INK effect
Good Effect! Will try it tonight!
Cool effect! I actually kind of like the non-video tuts…that way I can print it out and have all the settings handy for later use without having to go back and watch the movie again. Also…for the shadow effect, would it be simpler to just add a drop shadow to the pen and play with the settings that way?
Good work, will definitely try this out!
The rough edges really sell this effect. Well done!
it’s just great. And it’s not neccessery to be videotutorial, now i can go back to see some details.
very nice, but how do you do it so not to have the overlapped letters… the remnants of the ‘y’ before the writing of the ‘k’
With a bit more work, you can go back and animate the stroke thickness in those overlapped areas to give you tighter masks.
Hmmm… on second thought that won’t work as any change to the thickness will affect the entire mask along it’s path. So… it would require separating each ‘overlapped’ element from the rest and animating them on their on layers (i.e. The ‘T’ crossbar by itself; the downstroke and ‘hank;’ then ‘You’; and finally the serif on the Y). Then you have to determine how to reveal the underlying layers through layer modes or other method.
Anyone else have thoughts on how to best accomplish this?
very nice
Interesting! The ink infiltrating effect is awesome! Very well detailed!
I agree, Video tutorials are easyier to make and to follow, Use Camstudio or IShowU if you are on a mac.
Cheers
Движения пера плохие. Возьмите в руку ручку попишите и понаблюдайте за ее движением.
很酷！
Wow, I needed this a few months back…I wanted to do some handwritten text in a movie…oh well, I have it now!!! Nice tut!
Looks awesome, however the pen moves in an awkward motion, it should move more 3d like.
I concur. It’s a bit too jerky for my taste, not to mention some of the stroke paths do not follow “normal” writing sequence — the ‘T’ top bar would be first, then the down stroke, and the ‘Y’ all one stroke. But it’s still a very nice looking effect and one that I’m sure to use.
genial!!!!
video tutorial plis,..
thx
yeah! another text tuts. sorry
Very cool
Great effect and a quick effect, too.
The comment about how the letters were written out failed to take into consideration how each stroke effects other strokes, espeically those yet-to-be-seen strokes. For the amount of effort that you have to put into this, the results are pretty powerful. Some effects (rain tutorials) are awesome but require days worth of work. I cranked this out in about 20 minutes. The massive tutorials with hollywood-like results are great….but some of this quick ones are awesome too!
Cool effect with few steps!
Great job! I think this is all about : making great stuff but also keeping it simple.
It’s a simple tutorial but it’s something that’s great for beginners and even intermediate AE users because it reminds them of skills even they might of forgotten. Thanks!
I Think i found the Fountain pen and the Old paper pictures!
Fountain Pen:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/arts-and-entertainment/writing/711200-fountain-pen.php?id=711200
Old Paper:
http://www.cgtextures.com/texview2.php?id=24707&PHPSESSID=d0e722c2f3f032e2574fbcfe29a13e79
Yes, they are linked at the top of the tutorial :-)
really cool…!
so i can try this out without the trapcode plug-ins? cause it says optional…
That’s correct. Step 19 where it is used is an optional Step.
thanks all for your comments!
Eeeexelent……
i don’t get step 12, i use the stroke from after effects, i aply the effect to the mask layer, but the hole layer has a solid color :s then what? and how do you apply the stroke with the one from after effects? also the pen tool?
Hi Simon, make sure the path is set to the right source (mask). Also change Paint Style to ‘On Transparent’.
Hope this will help you
i basically don’t know how to remove the solid color of the solid layers :s
Motion sketch is much easier all you have to do is record the motion with the brush tool then copy the positions of the brush and paste it to the pen not 12 steps
Great effecet thanks
I was going along fine until step 12. i’ve selected the right source and made sure that paint style is ‘on transparent’ but when I drop the mask comp into the text comp (step 14) I have the red mask appearing all the time, and the text is visible as well (so nothing gets revealed). I’m scratching my head but can’t figure out where I screwed up (I’m guessing somewhere between steps 12-14).
Yeah it’s cool although personally I would leave the pen out, has a more magical feel,….that Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings thang!
ps. If the video tutorial is not an option how about a pdf download?
You can print the page and save it as a pdf. There is a special print css that strips all extraneous stuff off the page.
uhhh im stuck at step 12 lol i cant link the paths to “mask 1″ im so confused there…and will this work if i dont add the pen? i didnt wanna use it
really cool…!!!
step 11 more clearly pls
I DON’T HAVE A MASK WHERE DID YOU CREAT IT?
great tutorial. i am a novice and was able to follow along. My rendition is not nearly as good. however good start. timings are off with the pen animation and the masking of the letters. I need to figure out how to clean that up and my overall composition is just moving too slow. but i was able to get through it. good stuff.
video tut please.. it’s so great.. ;)
HI, i don’t understand how to make the pencil follow the the text …
anyway the the tutorial is god, thx :)
fkng sick
Nice one,
I’m just starting to work with AE. I need something pretty similar, just blur in the whole Text at once without any pencil or writing at all. I didn’t got any
satisfying results yet.
Any suggestions or other Tuts?
oh great
oh my god, thanks . more thanks
Very best tutorial in Handwritten Text in AE.
On step 12, if you use ‘stroke’ effect. Please don’t forget to change ‘paint style’ of stroke effect to ‘On Transparent’.
Somebody help me please, on step 19, why when I set it’s blendmode to classic color burn, the ink became white and no black. And appears a message when a I select the layer text in particular effect, that says that the layes needs to be 3d. please help me. I’m mexican so my english is bad but if you don’t understand please tell me and thanks.
Got stuck on step 12 also…
really stuck
I’m using a ‘Heading’ which is a Illustrator EPS instead of using a font in AE.
Will not be using fountain pen on top of text in final version.
???
lol… got through step 12… now stuck on animating on step 13
same here, I don’t really understand what the correlation is between the numbers for the end and the masks that we drew for the previous step.
Have you figured it out? if so would you kindly lend a hand :)