How to Open Text Animation in After Effects

To open text animation options in After Effects, you need to access the 'Animate' menu within your text layer's properties.

Accessing Text Animators

Text animation in After Effects is primarily controlled using Text Animators. These are powerful tools that allow you to animate specific properties of text characters (like position, scale, rotation, opacity, and more) based on various selectors.

Here’s the straightforward way to access them:

1. Create a Text Layer: If you haven't already, create a text layer in your composition. You can do this by selecting the Text tool (T) from the toolbar and clicking in your composition window, then typing your text.
2. Expand Layer Properties: In the Timeline panel, find your text layer and expand its properties by clicking the arrow next to the layer name. Then, expand the "Text" properties.
3. Find the 'Animate' Button: Within the expanded "Text" properties, you will find an "Animate" button. This is usually a small right-pointing arrow or a drop-down menu icon located next to the word "Text".
4. Open the Animator Drop-down: Open the text layer options Animate, and a drop-down menu of text animators will appear. This menu is based on the text properties you can animate.

• Example: From this drop-down, you can select options like Position, Scale, Rotation, Opacity, or even Tracking (which allows animating the letter spacing in selected letters), as mentioned in the reference.

Selecting an animator from this menu adds an "Animator" group below the text layer properties, containing the chosen property (like Position or Tracking) and a "Range Selector" (or other selectors like Word Selector or Line Selector) that defines which characters are affected by the animation. You can then set keyframes for these properties to create motion.

What Can You Animate?

After accessing the 'Animate' menu and adding an animator, you can animate various text properties:

• Transform Properties:
  • Position
  • Scale
  • Rotation
  • Opacity
• Text Properties:
  • Fill Color (RGB or HSL)
  • Stroke Color (RGB or HSL)
  • Stroke Width
  • Tracking (Letter Spacing)
  • Line Spacing (Leading)
  • Baseline Shift
  • Character Offset
  • Character Value
  • Blur

Each animator works in conjunction with a Selector (like the default Range Selector) to determine which part of the text the animation is applied to over time.

In summary, opening text animation in After Effects involves clicking the 'Animate' button within the Text layer's properties and selecting the property you wish to animate from the resulting drop-down menu.