I noticed that text-tracking animations have become increasingly popular in recent years. Social media platforms like YouTube or Instagram often have them, and there is a reason for that. Not everyone is gonna tune in to what you’re saying, and delivering information with animated text is not just informative but also really visually interesting. It’s a great way to add style to your video, so let’s look at Matthias Dangl’s video to learn how to animate text ourselves.
How to do tracking text animations
First, go to the Tracker panel. If you don’t see it, go to the window and check Tracker. Make sure you select your clip and click “Track camera”. Go to the effect controls, click advanced, and check the detailed analysis. After Effects will begin processing the clip, wait until it’s finished. When it’s done, you should see some red circles on your clip. If there aren’t any dots, check “Render Track Points” in the effect controls.
Try to find the flattest circle you can and right-click it. Click “Create Text and Camera”. Now, you should see the word “Text” where the circle was. You can tweak it by clicking on the Text layer. To change the text, double-click it and write whatever words you desire. You can also change the color and font if you would like.
Matthias decided to place the text behind the tree to make it look more like a part of the world. To do so, he duplicated the clip and moved the duplicated layer above the text layer. From there, it’s a simple matter of using the “Keylight” effect to make a mask based on a color the user chooses. He chooses blue to hide the blue sky and let the text layer pass through and be visible again, but only in the area of the blue sky. This way, it looks as if it’s placed behind the tree. If the results don’t look quite right after using the Keylights, you can go to the effect controls and adjust the screen matte options until the color filtering is accurate.
Alternatively, you can also mask the text with a rotoscope. To do so, duplicate the clip and move it above the text layer like before. Click on the Roto brush tool. Paint over the subject you want to cover the text. After Effects will smartly create a mask based on what it recognizes with the Roto Brush, so there’s no need to be too accurate. Once you’re done, press the tab and click on the composition. Then, all that will remain of that clip layer is what was selected with the Roto brush.
What if After Effects doesn’t find tracking points?
As Matthias moved further into the clip, he found another point he wanted to place text. However, in this scenario, After Effects did not find suitable tracking points. So, instead, he copied the existing text and adjusted it to a new position for that point in the clip. Because it wasn’t a perfect fit, he adjusted the keyframes as well. To do so yourself, click the 3D Tracker Camera and press U. Then, you can see all the key points set by the tracker. If there are any jittery or weird movements, you can zoom in, find the moment they happen, and delete them.
Adding animations to the tracking text
Finally, once you’re happy with how your text appears in the frame, you can go to the “Effects and Presets” panel, navigate to “Animation presets> Text> Animate In”, and select any animation preset that you want for your text. Just make sure to first have the play head at the frame in which the text appears when you place the preset. The preset starts where the play head is, so it will save you the effort of moving keyframes later. If you need to move keyframes anyway to change the timing or length or the preset, just select the text layer and press U like before to see the keyframes, and adjust them to your heart’s content.
