Typing on text—getting most recent character

[timhubner]

Hi,

I feel like the answer to this is probably a resounding "no" but figured i'd ask out there for those who know buckets more than i do.

If i have a line of text typing on (say, with the typewriter effect) is there a way to recognize at any given time what the last character typed was?

(With the idea that then you could link an object property to a character—e.g. when an A is typed on, an object scale animation is activated.)

Thanks for any thoughts anyone has on this!

-tim.

[zlovatt]

First-- this feels like more of an Expressions question, not a scripting question.

This could be doable depending entirely on the method you use to have the text type on, and the start/end range selector values, and most of the values in the 'Advanced' dropdown of the range selector.

With just Typewriter, set to the defaults, which are:

• Start: Animating 0% - 100%
• End: 100%
• Offset: 0%
• Units: Percentage
• Mode: Add
• Shape: Square
• Smooth / Ease High / Ease Low: 0%

You can use an expression like this to give you the most recent revealed character:

// Get the reference text content
var referenceText = thisComp.layer("Hi timhubner!").text.sourceText;
// Get the value of the animated Start selector
var selectorPct = thisComp.layer("Hi timhubner!").text.animator("Animator 1").selector("Range Selector 1").start;
// Get the index of the last shown character, based on the selector percentage and length of source text
var lastShownCharIndex = Math.round(selectorPct / 100 * referenceText.length);
// Get only the character from the index above
var lastCharacter = referenceText.charAt(lastShownCharIndex - 1);

Once you have it, then you can start exploring what you want it to do. Tiggering and playing back animation is a rabbit hole of loops and ifs and checks, so it may not be the best approach for what you're after, but this should be a good start to at least get that last character!

A gif of what this would look like is below. At the top is the 'Typewriter' effect on a text layer, and at the bottom I'm showing only the last character using the expression above.

[davidarbor]

Moved from After Effects Scripting​ to After Effects Expressions​

[timhubner]

Sorry for the slow reply, but thanks for the help!

That definitely gets me started down the right path.