Does the Write-On or Stroke Effect work on Tracked Text?

[so.hesh]

Hello all. Lifetime listener, first time caller here.

I've run into some trouble animating some text. I am tasked to come up with a TV Show Open (see Narcos, True Detective, Man In The High Castle, etc.) for a school project. I tracked some text to a target, changed the color, did my thang. What I want it to do is have each letter be written on sequentially. I use the Pen Tool, draw my lines over the letters, generate the Stroke effect, adjust the brush size, and then I'm stuck. Nothing seems to change when I adjust the brush size, and when I use the start and end points, nothing animates or moves. I'm trying to achieve the write on effect. It is a 3D layer, however I'm not sure that it should matter since I have previously done it to 3D texts. I haven't done it to tracked text before, so this is where I'm snagged. If anyone has the answers I am looking for, that'd be great. Otherwise, I will leave this here to be buried amongst the unanswered topics.

- EB

[Omar.Fathy]

I got confused, You need to use the Stroke Effect or the Write On Effect?!
By the way, Write-On Effect will work with you even the laye is a text or 3D Layer.

[so.hesh]

I guess I could have been more clear! I am achieving the Write On Effect, however I am using Stroke Effect and not the Write On Effect that AE also supplies you with. I'm trying to figure out if either of those Effects can work with tracked text, because I'll use whichever one works since they both basically achieve the same thing. I just know how to use Stroke and not Write-On, however I can learn quickly!

If I can be more clear with my wording let me know haha

[Kyle Hamrick · Accepted solution]

If I'm understanding your question correctly, I'm going to suggest precomposing your write-on animation, and then tracking THAT into place. (You should be able to do this without losing work you've already done, probably by simply duplicating your text layer, then precomposing.)

Depending on how you've set things up, many effects are based in 2D layer space, and while it may numerically be "correct" as far as AE is concerned, may not display properly once you toss your layer into 3d space. 

There are some other possibilities, but I'm guessing there's a good chance that'll be your solution here.

[so.hesh]

That answer seems to make sense with me! I'll give it a go today and come back if that works! Thanks!

[so.hesh]

That seemed to be the answer I was looking for! Thanks for your help!

To summarize, I did exactly as you thought would be the solution. After opening a separate text layer, I generated the stroke effect to my liking so my text layer would be ready to track. I pre-comped this layer, and ran the camera tracker on the footage I needed to track. After the tracker finished its initial track pass, I generated a null object from one of the target points. Then, I parented the pre-comped layer to the null object, and viola! We have our clip. It's pretty shaky so I might need to find a better point to track, but this basically shows the jist of it and what I was trying to do.

Definitely lots of room to play around with this effect, so this was fun. Here's a sample clip of what I achieved thanks to your help!

[Kyle Hamrick]

Glad to hear it all worked out!