Animated Handwriting

[Suntower]

90% sure this is not the correct forum, but ya gotta start -somewhere-. Sorry if these seems so 'noob'.

I want to create an animation for insertion into a Premiere video, the contents of which is the old cliche of handwriting appearing out of thin air.

I mean as if I were using using a screen recording program and drawing (or rather 'handwriting' with my wacom tablet) live in Photoshop or AI) on a transparent background.

Except that I want to 'record' that handwriting 'performance' such that it goes into a PSD animation or into an After Effects file or an AVI file or -something-... I have no idea -what- at this point. All I know is that I want to handwrite with my pen/tablet and have a file that I can import into Premiere.

The ultimate goal is to put it into an instructional video.

What would be a good tool for doing this sort of thing?

TIA,

---JC

[macpawel · Accepted solution]

You can do it in Animate, After Effects and maybe Premiere - try tu use masks

First write your text and then use animating mask to reveal it

Pawel

[Andrei Popa]

You can quite easily do it in after effects.

The technique is to draw a line over the actual text, as you would write it(this will create the mask).

Then go to this line properties and add trim paths. This will enable you to set the ending point of it, creating the write-on effect.

Then set the track matte type of the text(wich has to be under the line in the layers window) to alpha matte, so it will only be visible when the above line "exists".

If you don't have a specific font in mind, and would be willing to choose from some, audaciousleap has a little collection of automated scripts doing this thing with some fonts.

[Daniel Presedo]

Seems the best course of action is some form of "Screen Recording" to simulate the hand writing.

Here is one approach I have done myself:

You can actually record brush strokes in Photoshop as an Action and then play it back. It cannot be used in Premiere but if you were to do a screen recording you can record it one way change brush strokes and record it again. Different takes with different brushes all using your one time recording with a Photohsop Action.

It's not the most streamlined workflow but it works and the files tend to be large. If you plan to do a one-off and you can screen record it then it might be a useful experiment. At the very least you will have learned what few have ever seen

This is the tutorial from my YouTube Channel.

And, as I mentioned, if you were to use a screen recording tool with Photoshop > Just enter Full Screen mode and you could make a screen capture video and then use it in Premiere.

Good luck!

[angie_taylor]

In After Effects you can actually write your text on Screen with the Brush tool. If you make sure the Paint mode is set to “Write on” then it will automatically animate when you play it back. This is by far the easiest technique if you want to write it by hand. If you need more control over the shapes of the letters you can copy and paste paths from

Illustrator into an AE

layer as Masks. Then use the Scribble or Stroke effect to create the animated strokes on these masks. As

somebody mentioned, you could us Trim

Paths on shape layers but its a bit more

fiddly, particularly if youre not used to using Shape

layers. The other methods are very easy.

[RachelSarahm]

Hey Angie, I'm having the same question and can't find an answer anywhere. Total newbie. I have a writing tablet and would like to animate the text I write. Would you be able to explain more fully what you mean? You mean I won't need to use keyframes?

[angie_taylor]

As I said, use the paintbrush tool, it allows you to record your brushstrokes. Let me see if. I can dig out a tutorial for you

[angie_taylor]

Dear moderators. The answer that is marked as correct here is not really a correct answer. Thats how to create a reveal which is not what is being asked. They want to animate handwriting as its drawn.

[angie_taylor]

Here are a few tutorials that show various techniques with the paint tools and the stroke effect. None are exactly how I have told you to do it above so I’ll try to record something tomorrow to show you. Meanwhile, these will help you learn about the underrated Paintbrush tool! 😉

Basic Drawing and Painting in After Effects from: Wacom MasterClass Complete Collection - YouTube

Hand Drawn Text - YouTube

Painting on video in After Effects (Rotoscoping) - YouTube

After Effects - Creating Reveals with the Eraser Tool from: Wacom MasterClass Complete Collection - ...

Animate Handwriting with the After Effects Stroke effect - YouTube

[defaultko3yujks1tmt]

For letters that it loops on itself how do you get this so smooth? I'm trying to do a that is swirly and it keeps revealing bits of the s where I don't want them to and have no clue how to fix it! I have tried creating separate masks but it just keeps on showing part of the s tail when I try to trace the front. Any tips?