Image/text reveal has a gap when revealing with stroke

[Stefan Cargoski]

Hi forum.

Im doing a text reveal using the stroke effects, I have drawn my path with pen tool, all is good, until the reveal of the stroke which follows the direction of the path, but theres like an overlapping problem, until the stroke reveals some section of the Text, its got a gap, but since the stroke path has already past that section is should be covered, and not have a gap. Is there a way around this?

Thank you.

[Mylenium]

Animate the end in sync, not just the start.

Mylenium

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

You have to create mattes (or masks) that you can animate as the stroke reveals different parts of the letters. The effect of writing on text can be fairly simple or require four masks, animated mattes, or masks that you animate as the text shape is revealed. I usually do this all with a shape layer. Convert Text to a shape, Group that, then start editing the parts of the text that need to appear and using a shape layer path with Trim Paths as a track matte to reveal the text. Revealing "Happy Birthday" using this technique can take 10 minutes or 4 hours. It all depends on the font you choose for the text. 

[Stefan Cargoski]

Thanks for that Rick, it does work, although a bit more of a tedious task, to draw extra masks to get a cleaner text reveal.