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Home » Techniques » Tips & Tutorials » Blowing text off screen with text plus


blowing text off screen with text plus.

(Last Updated: June 18th, 2003)



In this flow, we'll make some text look like it's being blown away by the wind, once again using the new text+ tool's modifier function.

RequirementsDigital Fusion 3.1+, DFX+ 3.1 or greater
Flow  windy_text.flw
Images
Archive
Quicktime  View movie. (250 Kb)


1. Create a new flow. Set the Global Start to 0 and the Global End to 65. Set the frame format preferences for the flow to match your desired output (NTSC, PAL, etc...). Make certain the the high quality button is selected.

2.Add a new text+ tool to the flow. Type a sentence into the text box - we used the phrase "Text Windy".

3.Add a background tool, and change the color of the Background to solid White.

4.View the new Background tool, then add a polygon effects mask, and create an closed irregular polygon shape, like the one you see below.

We'll wrap this image onto our text as a texture to create chunks of text. This technique will ultimately make the text appear to disintegrate into parts rather than just individual characters.

5. Select the text+ tool to display its controls. Change to the shading tab. Select the Image option from the Color Type buttons. Drag the background tool you just created from the flow into the 'Color image' control that just appeared. This will cause our texture to be mapped to each of the characters in the image.

6. Switch to the Text Tab of the controls. Right click within the text box and add the Follower modifier. A small yellow indicator will appear in the Modifiers tab to indicate that a new Modifier is available for the selected tool (the indicator was Blue for 3.1 and 3.0). Open the Modifiers tab to see the Followers controls.

The Follower modifier is used to take animation applied to the Text and ripple it across the text one charater or word at a time. Many of the basic Text+ controls are duplicated here, but adjusting them will have no apparent affect unless the control you are adjusting is animated.

7. Make sure you are at Frame 0. Open the Follower Modifiers Shading tab. Open the reveal for the Transform Controls (at the bottom of the Shading Tab) and locate the x / y offset control. Right click on the controls label and select Animate from the context menu. (Version 3.x users may need to select Set Key instead of Animate).

Animate the Angle X and Angle Z controls using the same method. Each animated control will be shaded blue to indicate the presence of animation.

8. Change time to frame 15, and set the y offset to -1.

9. Change time to frame 30. Adjust the value of the X Offset to -10 and change the Y Offset to 1. Set the Angle X and Angle Z parameters to 180.

Set the render range to 0-65, and press play to see what you have done so far.

10. Change to the Timing Tab of the Followers controls. Change the Order menu to Right to Left, and set the Delay to 5.0 frames. This will offset the animation we just created by 5 frames for each character, starting from the rightmost character and moving to the left.

Press play to see what you have created so far. You should see chunks of your text fly off the left side of your composition in a wind-like fashion. Next, we'll make up the rest of the text.

10. Box select both tools in the flow and copy them to the clipboard with the CTRL-C shortcut (or right click on one of the selected tools and choose copy from the menu). Paste the copied tools back into the flow by right clicking in an empty area of the flow and selecting Paste from the context menu.

11. Select and view the new Background tool, then open the masks controls. Locate and select the Invert checkbox to reverse the mask. We will use this texture to create the rest of the chunks that make up our text. 

Select the new Text+ tool and open it's controls. Go to the shading tab, and confirm that the inverted Background tool is already set in the 'Color Image' control.

12. Merge the new Text+ tool over the old one. The result should appear to be solid readable text. Confirm this by viewing the Merge at frame 0, before the text starts to move.

13. Lets adjust the Follower modifier so that the chunks generated by the second Text+ tool move differently from the first. Its always easier to adjust animation of a Follower modifier if you set the delay to 0 while making the adjustments, then return it to the original value after making the adjustments. I changed the Y offset to be -0.5 at frame 30, and also added a 180 degree rotation to the Y angle parameter.

* Note : I used two keys for my 180 degree rotation, one set to 0.0 degrees at frame 0, another at frame 30 set to 180 degrees.

14. For each of the text tools, open the common controls tab (looks like a nuclear symbol) and enable motion blur. I set the quality to 4, and left the shutter angle at 180 degrees.


Obviously you can fool around with the follower modifiers to produce different effects. The key thing to remember is that it is always easier to adjust the Follower modifier settings when the delay is set to 0. Once you are happy ith the animation, return the delay to your desired amount of frames.

To view a slightly more detailed and realistic version of the same effect you can download this flow.

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