3D swing-in pendulum text

A preset to drop a text in from the capline in a swinging motion and then swing back and forth at the bottom as it loses 'momentum.' Like int the opener from the movie 'Stranger than fiction'

After Effects CS3
Text-FX
Presets (ffx)

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It uses an expressions selector to have a separate Sine wave for each letter/word etc.

Okay, here's the recipe:

- Add Text
- Enable "per character 3D"
- Add an animator for Anchorpoint, and adjust it so the Letters hang below the anchorpoint.
- deselect this animator and add a new animator for rotation.
- set the X-rotation to the start-position (-180 or +120, whatever you like)
- add an expression-Selector (you can remove the default range selector)
- Twirl open Amount and change the expression to this:

swings=3;
timeOffset=0.25;

v=valueAtTime(time-timeOffset*textIndex/textTotal)[0];
anim=2*Math.PI*v/100;
amp=easeOut(v,0,100,100,0);
Math.cos(anim*swings)*amp;

Now add keyframes to the amount: [0,0,0] and [100,0,0] about 100 frames apart.

That's it.

In the expression you can tweak the parameters swings and timeOffset, I think everything makes sense (swings does not have to be an integer, it will always end straight down)
You can change 'based on' to words or excluding spaces etc. Multiple lines works too, They'll each rotate around their own baseline, or around the topmost if you change "More Options -> Anchor Point Groupin" to "All"

You'll need an extra 'Opacity' animator if you want to fade in the letters once at the beginning.

by Filip Vandueren

Keywords

3D Text, per character 3D, Swing, Swinging, Pendulum, Hanging Hinged Text, Kinetic

(Min. Version: After Effects CS3, Category: Text-FX, Type: Presets (ffx))

posted by MicGyver on Nov 16, 2009

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After Effects CS3
3D
Scripts (jsx)

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posted by Indy on Jun 01, 2010

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Kinetic Text Expressions

The expressions simply check the velocity of your animations. If you move an objects motion ends abruptly (ie: you didn't easeIn @ 100%) the physics will kick in automatically.

After Effects CS4
Design/Objects
Expressions

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posted by MicGyver on Jul 30, 2011

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Use Text animation system as 3D vector graphics toolkit

The After Effects text animation system is very powerful. So why not use it for more than just text?

After Effects CS3
Useful things
Tips'n Tricks

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posted by MicGyver on Jul 12, 2009

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3D swing-in pendulum text

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Related topics:

AE3D Export - Maya, Max, and Lightwave

Kinetic Text Expressions

Use Text animation system as 3D vector graphics toolkit