After Effects Tutorial - Dynamic Text Box

[@markzaikov456]

EXPRESSIONS: try{ 0.15*parent.transform.scale[0]+effect("Expand Edge")("Slider"); } catch(err){ 0.15*transform.scale[0]+effect("Expand Edge")("Slider"); } [0,thisComp.height/2] [thisComp.width,thisComp.height/2]

[@JacobHagloch]

Thanks, that helps a lot more than trying to follow "to the letter"

[@MediaWorkbench]

finally after two years I have a website to post all the code snippets! Thanks for that initial inspo

[@belowdown7339]

@@MediaWorkbench congrats, I like your website!

[@GeoDab]

Criminally underrated channel. Going to spend some time to go through your loki tutorials and this dynamic text tut so I can use them on my first longform video.

[@MediaWorkbench]

Thanks! Looking forward to seeing what you make. If you run into issues check the FAQs for each tutorial on my Media Workbench website as usually common things I’ve addressed.

[@DanToruno1]

Thank you so much I tried and failed at two other videos trying to do the same thing but this works WAY better!

[@johnwetherall9161]

Amazing tutorial, all off one text layer as well! Expressions are almost a foreign language to me, this is a huge time saver and really has encouraged me to take a look at learning a little more about them

[@MediaWorkbench]

Thanks. That's so good to hear that it's encouraged you to look into expressions more. I was actually thinking early today about doing a series of training video on the basics of expressions to help people grasp it more, so thanks for the push and definitely stay tuned.

[@user-zd6bu5fe8g]

Thank you for this tutorial, it was super easy to follow and I learned a lot of new things! :) Thank you very much!

[@IAmAilenMusic]

Awesome tutorial, literally changed my video editing life, man! Thanks!

[@ealanosborne]

Wow...I NEVER could've pulled off a dynamic text box on my own with all the expressions involved. Thank you for the excellent breakdown. You deserve more subs, for sure. Question: Is there an easy way to customize or tweak these steps so that it's a box outline, instead of a box filled with color?

[@MediaWorkbench]

Thank you! If you visit this tutorial on the Media Workbench website (url for this tutorial is in the description) there is an answer to your question at the bottom in the FAQ.

[@ealanosborne]

@@MediaWorkbench Thank you!

[@BrendanNagle]

Super handy! I’m new to expressions and actually came here to learn how to auto scale the text element itself for populated text into a precomp (using plugin compsfromspreadsheets to make a bunch of animated title cards), but this is likewise helpful as an added layer of pizzaz onto these originally alpha titles... IF / ONCE I can figure that initial process out. Thank you again!

[@ERey55]

AMAZING!! I've been wanting to solve this so long time ago, and this is so clear and easy. Thanks a lot!!! I am suscribing right away!

[@OutdoorsmenLee]

Thanks a lot for doing this! But how do you keep the box the same size if you aren't using ALL CAPS? Example, If I have two lines of words "One size" Will be a different size from "Why is it". Any ideas?

[@bongflordelizaii7742]

Hi. Thank you for this tutorial.

[@davidlopez8576]

You sir. You saved my life

[@3dvizer]

That is what I was looking for, thank you

[@nuaveb]

Excellent stuff...and what a time saver.

[@jor7zeep]

works like a charm

[@robertsweeney2]

Fantastic tutorial! Thanks so much!!

[@matthewarnett7580]

I want to have the beam rounded with a stroke around it? How would I do that? This is a great tutorial. Love it.

[@luisaferabrilmartinez4217]

Could you make it?

[@MediaWorkbench]

You could fake rounded edges with the layer effect -> stroke and make it the same color as your box. There’s probably other ways as well using one of the Keying effects to refine the edge or something.

[@luisaferabrilmartinez4217]

@@MediaWorkbench it worked! Thanks :)

[@rommlll]

I hit a roadblock trying to have the text box in 4 color gradient so I precomp'd with and added a colored text behind its alpha, and then i hit another stop trying to round the text box corners, but otherwise this is a really smart way to do a simple one, if you know a way to get the gradients or rounded corners here do let know, cool tut!

[@MediaWorkbench]

Hmmmm let me ponder a solution for that one and I’ll get back to you

[@magnusallguren8934]

Thank you, very useful video! Was wondering, is there a way to achieve similar effect to only certain words in a text layer that has text animation (scale and opacity) applied for reveal and disappear?

[@antdinham]

Amazing tute! Thank you! Is there any way to do this using only effects that support 32-bit colour? (ie CC Composite doesn't).

[@jordanvanezis4799]

Hi @MediaWorkbench, I loved this tutorial. I have a set of viewfinders that i need to pin to the text box. One on the top left and one on the bottom right. Have you got any suggestions on how to do this? Keep up the awesome content :)

[@jamieburton6395]

Absolute Genius! thank you

[@ChadBarnier]

Dude thank you so much! Super helpful

[@danilo_z]

Wow, this helped me out :) How would you go about adding two more additional controls to expand the box just up or just down?

[@MediaWorkbench]

Danilo Z. Glad to hear it! To add in two more controls you’ll need to do the following... 1) add another slider control for “Additional Top” and “Additional Down” plus one more that you can call “expansion” 2) around 2:19 in the video. Instead of linking each of the repe tile properties to the Expand Up property, you would instead link it to the “expansion” slider, then + your “additional” slider. 3) the expression at 2:42 that goes into the Expand Up in the video, you would write as an expression on your “expansion” slider. That’s pretty much it. Hope that helps.

[@danilo_z]

@@MediaWorkbench Worked like a charm, thanks a ton! :)

[@backboltstudios271]

Amazing tutorial! Thanks :)

[@Joel-jx9gx]

Thanks, this is great, but is it possible to set a fixed height for the box? If you are using lower case, the the box height changes depending on the letters used. This means if you have two boxes together, they look uneven. Thanks!

[@MediaWorkbench]

4ro855 s you would have to manually control the box via the beam effect. Do the following: 1) remove the expressions on the “Beam” Starting and Ending points. Make the starting point X position 0 and and ending point X position the width of your comp. 2) parent the ending thickness to the starting thickness by alt+clicking on the stopwatch for the ending thickness and using the pickwhip to select the starting thickness. 3) adjust the starting thickness to set the box height. Then use the starting and ending points to ensure it aligns correctly. 4) do the same for any other layers you want to have the same fixed height

[@eduardoasta]

@@MediaWorkbench Thks for this. I loved your tutorial, but I have the same doubt of 4ro855 s. I still need some help. I've followed all steps above, but it didn't work as expected. I do can adjust the box height as you said, but if I change the text, the box height follows the new text height. I was expecting to fix the height it doesn't matter what is written.

[@MediaWorkbench]

@@eduardoasta part of it is because the repetile is what's pushing the initial bounding box of the layer outwards, so with this method it will always have some part influenced by the text itself. But at least this way you can still control the max height I guess you could call it. I'm not sure about having a set height unrelated to the text you have written, might require a different method to the one I created.

[@eduardoasta]

@@MediaWorkbench thks for answering. I've found a way using sourceRectAtTime() expressions. Not my ideia. I adapted it to work the way I need it. But I liked your method pretty much, specilly because de adjustable paddings.

[@Joel-jx9gx]

@@MediaWorkbench Perfect, thanks so much.

[@max_pin]

Thanks. This is amazing. Can I change the opacity of the box? I'd like to have solid white text on a tinted black box to put over video.

[@MediaWorkbench]

This took a few attempts but the following seemed easiest. On your text layer add, Channel -> Compound Arithmetic. Make your second source layer the same layer as your text layer. Change the Operator to "Copy" and Operate on Channels to "Alpha", the Overflow behaviour to "Clip" and now you can use the Blend with Original control to adjust the opacity. It does give a little bit of clipping around the edge of the text but depending on the size of your box in your final video and how transparent you make the box, it hopefully won't be noticeable. Let me know if it works for your needs.

[@azzamizzatal7757]

@@MediaWorkbench hello sir, thanks.. 1 question left; how can i link second source layer to source text? so when i duplicate your tuts and change text, i didn't have to change second source layer in Compound Arithmetic.. thank you sir

[@MediaWorkbench]

@@azzamizzatal7757 I don't think you can put an expression on the Second Source Layer of the Compound Arithmetic effect so you will just have to change manually when duplicating.

[@MediaWorkbench]

@@azzamizzatal7757 I've updated my method for opacity, it's a lot easier now and should work fine with duplicating etc. - Follow the tutorial to the end so you have all the effects controls in. - Go to Channel -> Blend and add it between the "Beam" and "CC Composite" Effects. You don't need to change any settings of the "Blend" effect. - Go to the "CC Composite" effect directly below it and uncheck "RGB Only" and ensure the Composite Original is set to "In front" - Finally, go to the "Blend" effect and the adjust the "Blend with Original" percentage to adjust the opacity to your liking. This works with any box colour and text colour and lets you keyframe the box opacity as a percentage. Additionally if you wanted to fade the text opacity independently as well you can use the Opacity property in the "CC Composite" effect. Using this method you gain independent control of the: - Text Colour - Text Opacity - Box Colour - Box Opacity and all can be keyframed.

[@azzamizzatal7757]

@@MediaWorkbench PERFERCT!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU MADE MY DAY :)

[@karlpouillot1064]

Nice work. Just a tiny problem. It doesn't work as well with small caps or accent.. It works when all the letters are the same size :(

[@MediaWorkbench]

Yeah that’s the one challenge with this setup is it is driven by the bounding box of the text layer which is calculated by the overall bounding box of the letters.

[@nspiers]

Great tutorial but I tried to do this with a 1080x1920 vertical composition and the text only appears in the middle (as if the composition were a 1920x1080 horizontal comp) and disappears when I move it to the top/bottom. Any idea why? I tried scaling it down and then pre-composing but it won't let me rasturize in new comp and looks blurred when I scale back up. Thanks

[@artillerystudio]

I want this to work with 'type on' text. 100s of ways of doing this without scripts at all. No one seems to have solved making the box animate with the text....Yet

[@MediaWorkbench]

What do you mean? In this tutorial you learn how to make the box appear with text without scripts. In the next video (linked in the description) I show how to make the box and text animate in together. That animation is dynamic, so you can go in and change the text, change the font, and it would still animate on correctly.

[@0mpongFacundo]

Sweet !!!! a million thanks :)

[@joshd265]

Great tutorial. Is there a way to create a similar thing, but for multi-line text? So you would type your text out and each time you hit the return key it would create a completely new text box beneath and separate to the one above? Instead of just enlarging the single text box to accommodate multiple lines of text

[@MediaWorkbench]

Josh Smith intriguing idea. there probably is. I can picture it involving multiple beams and using some clever line height detection. There’d be a bit more expressions involved but I don’t think it would be impossible.

[@LukasVolderauer]

Hi - super video - helped me a lot Is it possible to give the "Box Color" a transparency - only the background color - not the text? I need 2 of these bars (1x name 1x description) - these should then be animated a bit overlapping... just so that you know about what I intend to do... :) I am looking forward to an answer

[@MediaWorkbench]

Hi Lukas. Yes it's possible, you can find the instructions in the description of this video on how to control the box opacity

[@klarrio9649]

Thanks for this! Ed.

[@EdVizenor]

Can this be done by pulling text from a database from online?

[@MediaWorkbench]

From a database online, there’d probably be a fair few steps. Bit advanced. I’ve certainly done dynamic text from a text file before, and I believe you can pull csv data in, but I’ve never done it before. Quite the rabbit hole to explore. I can definitely look at doing a video in the future about pulling data from text files.

[@EdVizenor]

@@MediaWorkbench thanks for your reply here's why I'm asking. Because I want to create a live video feed that pulls comments from users. I'll do all the backend coding to get the text but I'd love to put it in After Effects and show it live on my video. I know how to do everything except getting the dynamic text into after effects. And to do this I would need to pull it from a URL period however now that I'm thinking about it I suppose I could write a script to save it in a folder on my hard drive and do that dynamically period anyways thanks for your fast reply period

[@tizzopil]

Hey man, thank you for the video. Question... I have a lot of text and if use this technique all I get is one big box behind all of it, do you think there is a way to have a box for every line? Almost as if you were highlighting the text?

[@MediaWorkbench]

You could either have each text line split up and apply the effect to each, or get your text formatted and sized and spaced and then do the following... 1) Remove the expressions on the "Beam" effects Starting and Ending points. Make the starting point X position 0 and the Ending point X position the width of your comp. 2) Parent the Ending Thickness to the Starting Thickness by Alt+Clicking on the stopwatch for Ending thickness and using the pick whip to select Starting Thickness. 3) Adjust the starting and end points and thickness to create a beam line that goes around just one line. Make sure by the end the Starting Point and Ending Point have the same Y position value, so the beam is straight. 4) Select the Beam effect in the Effect Controls and Ctrl + D to duplicate. Adjust the position for the next line. Repeat for each line you have. (Note, when you duplicate the ending thickness will still be parented to the starting thickness of the first beam) That should do it.

[@Joel-jx9gx]

@@MediaWorkbench I've tried this but the box width is based on the length of the first line only. so the second line's box inherits the width of the first. Is there a way to have the repetile effect work per line of source text? That would be amazing.

[@MediaWorkbench]

@@Joel-jx9gx Hmmm I'm not sure how you could. You would probably need each line of text as a separate layer.

[@iwillilustracion3457]

Amazing! I wonder if you can add a control for box roundness, how would you do that? Thanks in advance!

[@MediaWorkbench]

You could fake rounded edges with the layer effect -> stroke and make it the same color as your box. There’s probably other ways as well using one of the Keying effects to refine the edge or something.

[@cemguney2]

It's voodoo magic!

[@KabeeshS]

this is sooo damn cool. and very simple..

[@evadsirrah6815]

Will the textbox still resize if exported as a .mogrt and used in Premiere Pro?

[@surigarro]

i can't find it for cs6, but you save my life)

[@macker202]

On your intro to this the text rotates as it comes in letter by letter, how do you do this? I'm very new to AE.

[@MediaWorkbench]

Hi Chris MacDonald, In the description of the video is a link to part 2, all on animating the dynamic text box. I believe this is what you’ll be after.

[@creativemusic3150]

Great job. But how can we get box stroke instead fill effects? Thanks!

[@MediaWorkbench]

Do the following... 1. Effect -> Matte -> Simple Choker Adjust the Choke Matte into the negative so you start seeing a black border around the edge. 2. Effect -> Channel -> Minmax Set Channel to "Alpha" then adjust the radius to expand or shrink the black border. 3. If you want a white border use Channel -> Invert and then adjust the box and text colours. or if you want any other colour border 4. Effect -> Color Correction -> Change to Color Set From Black to whatever colour. Change : HLS. Change by : Transforming to color.

[@RobinHoodPresent]

Genius!) Thanks!

[@thibautbidaine9862]

This is perfect! Any idea how to add round corner?

[@MediaWorkbench]

Thanks! Easiest way to round the corner is to add a "Stroke" Layer Style by right clicking the layer, and make the color the same as the box. Doesn't work with adjusting Box Opacity though, but there's other ways to achieve that if you need both controls.

[@auberginahobson]

@@MediaWorkbench Hi there, thank you so much for this video! A life saver! What would be the best way to control both opacity and rounding of the box? At the moment I've used stroke and can control the opacity but it also changes the opacity of the text, not just the box. Any idea how to isolate the text so it stays at 100% opacity?

[@MediaWorkbench]

@@auberginahobson Great question. So to control the opacity of the box and text separately, follow the tutorial until the end, then in the description of the video there's an explanation of an additional effect you can add in called "Blend" that's put between the "Beam" and "CC Composite". With a few setting changes to our effects the "Blend" has an opacity percentage property we can use to independently control the opacity of the box to the text. To get some rounding of the box you could use "Matte Choker" and place it between the "Beam" and "Blend" effects. Set the Gray Level Softness 1 to about 2% to prevent too much sheering, and then using the "Geometric Softness 1" and "Choke 1" values you can create a rounded look. I found 25 for Geometric Softness and 42 on Choke gave me a good look when trying it out.

[@jayfang3673]

It works awesome to me new to AE. Would you mind sharing how to animate the boxed Text moving up as shown at 0:02 - 0:07 ? Thank you !

[@MediaWorkbench]

Hi Jay glad you enjoyed it. You can find out how to animate the text in part 2 (link is in the description)

[@jayfang3673]

@@MediaWorkbench Thank you so much for speedy replay. Your are the best !

[@fredpourlesintimes]

And to make a simple transparent background block linked to a text, is it possible or do we have to make complexe things as you do?

[@MediaWorkbench]

What do you mean? What are you trying to create?

[@prepromedia7000]

Nice. How would you save this to create a .mogrt file to be used in Premiere and have control of each aspect?

[@MediaWorkbench]

Great question, I'll have to look into it.

[@Patryk737]

Genius

[@zanerTEEVEE]

can you make a simple tutorial on motion design techniques?

[@MediaWorkbench]

Alejandro Marques what sort of techniques would be of interest? Camera movement? Creating elements? Stuff like that?

[@zanerTEEVEE]

@@MediaWorkbench Yea, stuff like that! Just dynamic movement and interesting motion techniques you can think of. (Basically, what would look cool)

[@MediaWorkbench]

@@zanerTEEVEE I've recently released a tutorial on easing, this might be one of those techniques that may interest you.

[@askmswinnie8418]

I'm trying to add typewriter animation, but the box won't adjust with the text... Do you know how I can fix that?

[@MediaWorkbench]

Hi Ask Ms Winnie, are you animating the text within the box? Just need a little bit more of an understanding how you’re currently trying to do it to suggest a solution.

[@askmswinnie8418]

@@MediaWorkbench I dragged the typerwriter preset to the text. The text layer then has both the typewriter animation and the box functions. Does that answer your question?

[@mingkulet]

Asking the same question here.

[@MediaWorkbench]

It has to do with the way it adds in the animation to the text. I’ve just released a video on how I animate text in the Dynamic Text Box so definitely check it out.

[@NonaPrince]

I went from Oh cool to WTF is happening pretty quick. Too advance for me atm

[@MediaWorkbench]

Yeah it’s a bit of a step up, but it’s all a learning process so all good you’ll get there :)

[@NonaPrince]

@@MediaWorkbench thanks, you are doing great

[@mohamadrezanaderi2496]

dude how we can change the opacity of the box?

[@MediaWorkbench]

mamad reza naderi the process to do so is written in the video description. :)

[@RahulCarnaliousSnal]

How to add opacity to the text box without affecting text opacity ?

[@MediaWorkbench]

I tried a bunch of ways to do this with some results better than others. The easiest way I have found that gives you a lot of control while not having to mess around too much is to do the following. - Follow the tutorial to the end so you have all the effects controls in. - Go to Channel -> Blend and add it between the "Beam" and "CC Composite" Effects. You don't need to change any settings of the "Blend" effect. - Go to the "CC Composite" effect directly below it and uncheck "RGB Only" and ensure the Composite Original is set to "In front" - Finally, go to the "Blend" effect and the adjust the "Blend with Original" percentage to adjust the opacity to your liking. This works with any box colour and text colour and lets you keyframe the box opacity as a percentage. Additionally if you wanted to fade the text opacity independently as well you can use the Opacity property in the "CC Composite" effect. Using this method you gain independent control of the: - Text Colour - Text Opacity - Box Colour - Box Opacity and all can be keyframed.

[@RahulCarnaliousSnal]

@@MediaWorkbench Thank you very much! :)

[@MediaWorkbench]

Roy Cranston you’re quite welcome, glad it was helpful 👍🏼 why I do what I do

[@KNIPOOG]

I have no idea what is happening

[@NusrathUllah]

Nice Tutorial, can you share the Project file? thanks in Advance

[@Tagan4eg21]

One question how do you animate text as on 0:09

[@MediaWorkbench]

Okay so it's got a couple steps... 1) On the text layer when you toggle the arrow to show it's properties you get the "Animate" button on the right, select scale That will create an Animator (probably called "Animator 1") 2) Unlink the scale property within the animator and make the it 0,100 so it only scales horizontally. 3) In the range selector have start 0, end 100, and set offset to 0 but this we will keyframe to animate. In Advanced settings make sure units are percentage, based on characters, mode is subtract, amount 100%, shape "Round" and no easing or randomized order. 4) Next where it says "Add" for the Animator 1 we're going to add a second Range Selector. 5) The second range selector under Advanced select Percentage, Characters, Mode "Min", 100%, Shape Square, Smoothness 100%, no easing. 6) for the second Range Selector the End should be 100% and Offset at 0%, then finally we'll add a linear expression to the "Start" property. linear(text.animator("Animator 1").selector("Range Selector 1").offset,-50,50,0,100); //so referencing the offset of the first Range Selector, the offset we will now keyframe. 7) Keyframe the Offset of the first Range Selector to 0% at wherever you want the animation to start. Move forward to where you want it to end and set it to 40%. Ease both the keyframes. That's it. The dual Range Selectors create a very smooth eased animation per character movement. And scaling purely on the horizontal ensures the box doesn't do weird things.

[@Tagan4eg21]

@@MediaWorkbench It's awesome ! really thanks for that trick!

[@conormurphy7058]

@@MediaWorkbench Hey, thanks for the tutorial. When I try the animate technique at 9secs, it's not smooth. The box thickness just changes slightly half way through. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Also, in the last step (key framing the offset), nothing happens between 0 and 40%. I have to go from -100% to 100% for it to work. Thanks.

[@MediaWorkbench]

Hmmm, I may need to do a video so you can see the steps. Mixing range selectors can get pretty complicated and hard to troubleshoot because there's no real easy way of seeing how they interact with one another. I have one trick that helps but may need a tutorial to explain.

[@conormurphy7058]

MediaWorkbench Thanks

[@AndrewOlivares]

uuum it's telling me that "property or method named 540 in Class 'Array' is missing or does not exist".... any ideas?

[@MediaWorkbench]

Hi Andrew, can you tell me which property you are writing the expression on when you get that error?

[@AndrewOlivares]

@@MediaWorkbench hey thanks for replying. I was coping and pasting the expression that the top comment had to save time but I ended up just writing word for word what was in the video and now it works. I don't know it's just me! Is there a way to save this as a preset? Each time I click and drag all the effects into the effects browser it only saves the last effect on the stack.

[@MediaWorkbench]

@@AndrewOlivares You should be able to select all the effects, then in the "Effects & Presets" panel click on the top right menu and "Save animation preset". It'd then appear under *Animation Presets -> User Presets