Text animation

[P.Daguerre]

I am rather new in the animation business and perhaps my ambition is set to high, but what I am trying to make is a text line that disappear in a page peel/page turn fashion. Imagine the text on a piece of transparent tape. Now take the right en of the tape and pull it off by dragging the end to the left in the scene thus turning the characters backside facing you as the tape is pulled off.

I have looked at the differnt presets but can't find anything that looks like what I aim for and I've watched all the tutorial videos that there are but I can't figure out how to accomplish this.

I'd much appreciate some help.

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

This is pretty easy to do using the CC Page Turn Effect. If you use Page Turn on one layer, the fold is behind the text. To get the file in front of the text you have to use two layers. It's a good idea to tie key properties together with simple expressions created with the pickwhip from the Links/Switches column. You can reveal that column by pressing Shift + F4. You should also have the Modes and Switches column visible. Do that by turning on the two icons at the bottom left corner of the Timeline panel. This screenshot shows how I tied the Source Text, Fold Position, and Fold Radius of the top copy of the text layer to the bottom one and how I set the top copy to render only the back and the bottom copy to render only the front.

The screenshot shows you everything I have done to the layers.

Without the use of 3rd party plug-ins or converting the text layer to a 3D layer then exporting as a C4D file and animating the C4D text layer in Cinema 4D Lite, this is the easiest solution. 

[P.Daguerre]

Thanks a lot Rick!

This is exactly what I aimed for. Fingers crossed that  I can follow your instructions correct. I'll yell for your help if I get stuck! 😉

Peter

[P.Daguerre]

Hi again Rick!

Seems I immedeately got stuck! I started a new project by typing a text of appropriate length in the composition panel wich, as expected, turned up in the timeline. Now, in the space to the left of the actual timeline there are options to what you can do, but I miss the "fx" symbol. It's there in the header (transfer controls pane) just above but not on the line representing my text. Under other symbols there are small boxes where you can tick or untick that specific function but under "fx" the box is greyed out. What have I missed?

Regards

Peter

[P.Daguerre]

Hi Rick!

You can omit my second reply because I found out myself what I had missed!

I have done everything according to your instructions (so I believe anyway) but the text doesn't move one bit. In order for you to see what I have done I have copied a screen shot but I don't know how to attach it to this text.

[Rick Gerard]

Did you animate the position of the fold position? 

You attach images using the toolbar. There is an icon just to the right of the </> icon that looks like a photograph of mountains. Click that and load an image.

[P.Daguerre]

Animate the position of the fold position? Well I think so!

To attach the screen shot was just a matter of making it the right file format. Now it's converted to JPG. Hope it is readable.

[P.Daguerre]

Sorry, wrong picture - should have been this one.

[P.Daguerre]

Hi Rick!

I am very slowly starting to get the hang of things but I still have som issues. When you asked if I had animated the position of the fold position I assumed I had beause I had written the coordinates for respecive key-frame, but it wasn't until I grabbed the little red dot with the mouse and moved it to its end position that things started to happen. But, I don't see the bakside of the text when it is folded. If I disable the view of the first line (se the first picture below) I can see that the text is folding but when I enable the view of the first line (second picture) I can see the text laying flat behind the on that is folding. The coordinates for fold position and radius are perfectly coordinated between line one and line two. The figures för fold radius doesn't seem to have nay impact at all on the process. So again: what have I done wrong or what have I omitted?

Regards

Peter

[Rick Gerard]

What happens when you solo layers? The bottom layer should bend in exactly the same way that the top layer does if you have everything set up properly. One layer should only show before the fold, the other layer should only show after the fold.

[P.Daguerre]

Hi Rick,

I tried tol illustrate what is happening (or what is not happening) with the aid of the two screen shots above. The top one illustrates the front page solo (the second line in timeline) that folds as expected. The bottom picture shows both layers where the back page stays put. In order to facilitate for me to see what layer I am working with I colored the back page text red still keeping the front page white. To my surprize I found that the back page is laying in front of (on top of) the front page. Normally if I want to change the order of how layers are stacked on top of each other, I'd just drag the layer in the timeline up or down to repoition it but that can't be done here. Maybe this gives you a hint to what is wrong in my setup?

Regards

Peter

[P.Daguerre]

Hi Rick,

After fiddeling around with my composition, starring at your screen shot to reveal any mistake without solving the problem with the non-moving back page, I decided to start all over again and creating a new composition. And what do you know - now it works!! I guess there must have been a bug of some kind that sneeked into my project. I have saved your screen shot so I can look up the syntax in the future which I'll certainly will forget otherwise!

Again, many thanks for your help and apologies for any spelling mistakes.

Peter