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Motion Forward
Participant
October 19, 2023
Question

Text Jitter Caused by Optical Kerning in Essential Properties

  • October 19, 2023
  • 6 replies
  • 2852 views
When using essential properties for text, a bug occasionally causes text jitter issues during rendering. This result is unpredictable but usually occurs after editing the text with essential properties.
 
The problem occurs when using optical kerning with essential properties. The fix for now: when using text in essential properties, ensure the kerning is set to "metric" instead of "optical." The jitter seems to occur only when kerning is set to "optical," and appears to switch back to "metric" kerning only for a few frames shown below. 
flicker issue with optical kerning


no flicker with metric kerning

 
This error occurs in both After Effects and Premiere (when using MoGRTs created in After Effects), as Premiere relies on After Effects for rendering MoGRTs.
 
The solution: Until the bug is addressed, always use "metric" kerning when working with essential properties for text in After Effects and creating MoGRTs.
 
If you have a MoGRT using "optical kerning," open it in After Effects, reveal the source text, change it to "metric" kerning, re-save the MoGRT, and replace it in your timeline. When prompted, choose to update all.
 
Hope that this bug can be addressed. thanks!
 

    6 replies

    Shebbe
    Community Expert
    ShebbeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 11, 2025

    We are also plagued by this issue with a particular project at the moment. This is really problematic since it concerns a lot of asset deliverables. 

    Happy to share a project privately for investigation. Who can I send it to? 
    We need a solution asap.

    P
    Paul Mumford
    Participant
    July 11, 2025

    Hey Shebbe,

    We found a work around on this. We changed the kerning from optical to metric AND the font size from a round number like 11 to a fractional number like 11.01

    Give it a try

    Give it a try, it might work

      Shebbe
      Community Expert
      ShebbeCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      July 12, 2025

      Hey Paul,

       

      Before posting this, my colleague already confirmed to me that the same issue arises when using metric kerning. He also tried the fractional font size which only seems to help temporarily (cache refresh or whatever?) but with later renders it comes up again.

      K
      krejue
      Participating Frequently
      April 24, 2025

      That’s not a very great solution- this will impact performance very much.

      G
      giu_camblor
      Participant
      April 23, 2025

      Simply disable the ‘Multiframe rendering’ option in the AE preferences.

      P
      Paul Mumford
      Participant
      April 24, 2025

      This did not fix the problem. We're also working at scale on a renderfarm with + 100 nodes.

      After extensive testing and investigations, we found changing the font size to something with a fractional value fixed the issue. For example rather than 16, we used 16.01. Clearly there is something wrong under the hood of the text rendering engine.

        E
        emile_3380
        Participant
        August 4, 2025

        This worked for me too, even with the Optical setting. Setting the font size to XX.01 still showed some jittering, albeit less. But setting the size to XX.02 stopped it (for now).

        P
        Paul Mumford
        Participant
        March 31, 2025

        I've hit this issue on a project this week using Noto Sans JP.

        Switching from Optical -> Metrics looks a tiny bit better but several of the characters are twitching still when viewed up close.

        🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲

        nishu_kush
        Community Manager
        nishu_kushCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        April 3, 2024

        Let us know if you're still having the issue in the new version.
        I am moving this thread from Bugs to Discussions for now.

        Thanks,
        Nishu

        A
        Aaron Cobb
        Inspiring
        May 28, 2024

        On what version of AE is this fixed? I'm encountering a similar kerning glitch very sporadically when rendering graphics in the render queue (not in MOGRTS) in AE 23.6.0. The text is set to Optical kerning, but when it glitches the kerning only changes between certain pairs, and doesn't seem to match the Metrics kerning for those pairs. We are set to upgrade to AE 24.x sometime in the coming months, so if this is fixed in that version I can just be vigilant about spotting it when it occurs and re-rendering.

        nishu_kush
        Community Manager
        nishu_kushCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        June 7, 2024

        We're still investigating this. I tried reproducing it on my end several times, but it didn't flicker. Can you share a file that repeats the issue? Happy to look into it. Feel free to DM me.

         

        Thanks,

        Nishu

        K
        krejue
        Participating Frequently
        December 20, 2023

        In our case, it is changing the spacing in a really ugly way. 1 and 0 arevery far from each other. Is there no other solution?

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