How to insert special text Symbols in AE text layer?

3 steps to adding glyph characters in After Effects.

Tip: make sure the typeface supports the glyph you want to add.

1. Type your copy in After Effects first (to get the correct scale), copy the text and past it into Illustrator.

2. In Illustrator, highlight the character you want to effect, then go to Type/Glyph to select the glyph.

3. Copy the changed text from Illustrator and past it into your After Effects text layer.

I wish After Effects could make it this simple.

Hope this is helpful.

Actually what I am trying to obtain in the end, is a star which is moving in a half-elips, and has a tail of other 9 stars following it.

I had made it with the repeater, but I have 2 problems:

1. If I animate the POSITION and ROTATION of the repeater I get the 10 stars to move on a perfect circle (and I need it slightly ellipse) + the feet of the stars are facing toward the centre of the circle, while I need them to be facing down.

2. If I animate the path of the shape layer (the original star), and I add a repeater, I don´t get the other stars to follow as tail. The "repeater" stars don´t follow on the path. Auto orient doesn´t help much, and anywaymakes their feet, just like in Problem 1, face towards the center of the ellipse path.

The distance between the stars has to be 0 at the beginning, and afterwards to "create the half" ellipse. So doing it by hand is also not an option. Its has to be smooth.

DOING IT AS A TEXT LAYER, TO WHICH I GIVE A PATH AND ANIMATE THE TRACKING  OF THE SYMBOLS WORKS PERFECTLY! and gives me so much control (Offset, transparency) If only I could insert that star in the Text Layer!

Vector icons are easy to find, and many are free- start in the assets section of cc and from places like Envato. I have not tried Wingdings in Ae, but it's easy to bring in files as a PNG from Ps.

AE does not support all Unicode/ OpenType features, even if things have gotten gradually better over tha last few releases. You will have to create a graphic in another program and import that as your layer most likely.

Mylenium