Quick Tip – Type-On Text Preset With Blinking Cursor

Quick Tip – Type-On Text Preset With Blinking Cursor

on Jan 23rd 2012 with 36 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: Just After Effects... enjoy
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • Run Time: 12:17 min

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

Download Source Files

In today’s Quick Tip you’ll learn how to make a “Type-On” preset using only Source Text expressions. After Effects comes with a default “Type-On” preset, but this method allows you to have a blinking cursor on screen while the text appears.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .mov

File size: 94.3 MB

 
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Jorrit is young guy that is interested in VFX & motion Graphics, and loves messing around in After Effects, 3Ds Max and such. he is also active on aenhancers.com creating awesome presets for free. Follow Jorrit on twitter.  

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  • Michael Reedy

    nice tut… but what i really liked about this tut was the last piece of knowledge dropped… the way to save it as a preset… that will save so much time than having to redo and relearn this tut

    • pkn

      Awesome work !
      How to pause while writing and how to make the cursor blink during this break?

      Thanks a lot

      • Orl

        yes, i have this doubt too! any helps?

  • Chris

    Ear rape… Nice tut but I have $1000 speakers here and the volume was up pretty high -_-

  • http://www.zieglermarkus.de Markus

    Thank you very much for sharing.

    That is such a cool way to do this.
    And now that I know it, it is also so easy…

    Wow!

    Markus

  • Juanjo Vargas

    So useful, and very nice explained, thanks!

  • Ramzes

    Guys, I have a question. I am using Win 7, when I am trying to save as a preset, it says that I have to have administration permission. how can I save it, any ideas?

    • Ofek

      If you run After Effects as Administrator, it should work.

  • Dot

    Cool Tip
    thanx for sharing

    • Dot

      Another thing
      this trick doesn’t work on CS3 any solution?
      also i cant find this expression in the little arrow of the expression options

      • Jorrit Schulte

        For CS3, instead of substr(0,T)
        use
        value.substr(0,T)

        that should work

  • bob

    nederlander

  • http://www.norookie.com Brandin

    I have only one issue with this script. The cursor continues to push my text back when it appears once the text is finished being revealed. Is there a solution to this? Other than this, the tut. has be extremely helpful! Thanks and great job!

    • Dot

      Hi
      make your text left align and it should fix that

      • Brandin

        Dot, I’m embarrassed… Thanks!
        (That solved the problem)

  • Brian

    Awesome job! 1 question though is what is the best way to stop the flicker of the “|” symbol?

    • Jorrit Schulte

      You can add a CheckBox Controll and multiply PT by the value of the checkbox.

      • tresvampiros

        It’s actually F what should be multiplied by the CheckBox Control. Otherwise the entire text would disappear. Thanks, great tut.

  • Thorsten

    I can’t plug this preset into my AE for some reason. I have CS4. It says “Can’t import file: Unsupported filetype or extension” anyone have any idea why?

    • Jorrit Schulte

      put the .ffx file into your After effects folder > Support Files > Presets

    • http://mateopustiu.wordpress.com MateoPustiu

      I have the same problem! I installed ffx file in Support Files – Presets, but still does’t work.
      I have AE CS4 version 9.0

  • tom kam

    Is there a way to vary the speed of the cursor symbol? For instance if I want the cursor to blink faster? Also, is there a way to vary the speed of the write on, for instance to add a wiggle expression to the “speed” slider?

    Thank you very much.

  • pkn

    Awesome work !
    How to pause while writing and how to make the cursor blink during this break?

    Thanks a lot

    Sorry for my poor english and for the bad place in comments…

  • Schylerr

    Hi!
    Great tut!
    one question,
    I am working in CS5.5 and i have gotten everything to work except for the beginning flicker. I can not get the cursor to flicker first then begin typing on at the start at time.

    Thanks in advanced

  • morais

    Nice tutorial,

    but I have a question:
    If you precompose the text layer you can drag it aroung the timeline without problems, no? I´m new at expressions so I don´t know if that works.

    Thanks for sharing this with us it has been very helpful :) sorry for my english

  • Lelia

    Great tut, thanks for sharing!
    I love the tuts here, but why do so many have such bad sound quality?

  • Ali

    Is there a way you can make that expression do the typing from right to left for Arabic language while keeping the cursor blinking?

  • http://www.zebravideo.ca video production toronto

    nice tutorial,thanks for sharing

  • Rob

    Hi, Awesome TUT!

    I have the same question as Tom Kam “Is there a way to vary the speed of the cursor symbol? For instance if I want the cursor to blink faster?”

    I’m working on a high energy project and a faster blink will help give it a bit of a more urgent tone.

    Thanks!
    Rob

  • andrei

    thanks a million! God bless you

  • http://twitter.com/navparker Navarro Parker

    I made some adjustment that might be easier to deciper. It needs three sliders: Speed, Start After, and Cursor Blink.

    L = text.sourceText.length;

    It = time – thisLayer.inPoint;

    sp = thisComp.layer(“Type On Controller”).effect(“Speed”)(“Slider”);

    st = thisComp.layer(“Type On Controller”).effect(“Start After”)(“Slider”);

    bl = thisComp.layer(“Type On Controller”).effect(“Cursor Blink”)(“Slider”); // value 0 off ~ 10 very fast

    T = It * sp – st;

    F = Math.round(( It * bl) % 1 );

    if(F==1 | (T0) ){Fl=”_”;}else{Fl=”";}

    substr(0,T) + Fl

    • M@g

      It doesnt work on AE CS6 :( Says there’s error on line 10 with property ‘Source Text”. I’ve tried fixing it but I’m a beginner in expresions so… I couldn’t figure it out. The code from tutorial works, but to make cursor blinking I had to add Fl = “”; under F property.

    • http://www.facebook.com/jared.roberts.3154 Jared Roberts

      how do you pause the cursor for instance inbetween sentences with the cursor still blinking and how do you stop the cursor from blinking at the end?

  • Elbert

    Thank you! Wondering how’s the backward effect would be?

  • http://www.online-nrw.de/ wiyono

    Didn’t work in CS6?

    i don’t know why? kikiki….

  • La Brega

    Hi, anybody know how to change the color of the cursor and NOT the text?