How to create a blinking cursor effect in After Effects - AE Tutorial

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#aftereffects #adobe #animation
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[@nghialuutrong8175]

Next time when you post a video like this, pls write your code in comment ! For everyone who needs: var sign = "|"; var blinkInterval = 15; var i = effect("Text")("ADBE Slider Control-0001"); var on = effect("On/Off")("ADBE Checkbox Control-0001"); var frames = timeToFrames(time); var check = frames / blinkInterval; if (on == 1) { if (i.valueAtTime(time + thisComp.frameDuration) > i){ end = sign; } else { if (Math.floor(check) % 2 == 0) { end = sign; } else { end = " "; } } } else { end = " "; } text.sourceText.substr(0,parseInt(i)) + end;

[@tj_puma]

^^^Thank you!

[@taylorking7135]

Legend.

[@lewiscopland4568]

lmao thank you, who creates a Mediafire link for a ZIP file that contains a few lines of code?!

[@ozero189]

Thanks!

[@BOOM_BOOM_BUSH]

tnx alot brooooooooooooooooo

[@trinityross9313]

Just a heads up if you can't get the expression working, remember to rename your effect control with capital letters 'On/Off' (if it's lowercase 'On/off' it won't work 😊)

[@danisentinella]

That's incredible! Thank you so much for your help, Max!

[@Mortal_Tezer]

THANK YOU SO MUCH THIS VIDEO IS AWESOME

[@commongivemeanicknam]

Great rig! Thanks for sharing.

[@rosanita]

That was unbelievably helpful! Thanks a lot!

[@RustyRoosterLife]

Thank you! Super helpful tutorial!

[@wendylin266]

Thank you for this video!

[@GetToThePointAlready]

Used your tut on my next project - Definately got a sub for this dub! Well done!

[@christianmklein]

Thank you!!

[@sylvainhoude8542]

Thank you very much, it work's perfectly

[@pauladelrioarteaga4754]

Thank you, was really useful!! Just one thing, I've used it on a composition with the text on more than one row and center alignment, and the blinking course moves the last word to the left as it blinks... any ideas to fix that??

[@Bopolsification]

best type on expression around. it's not about speed like others do, it's the timing of the text and this caters it. just add slider for blinking speed and add the codes at the description and this will be 💯

[@msjstudioo]

Thank you for this tutorial 👍

[@bhosterman]

Thank you!

[@parmargopalsinh572]

Thank You so much for this tutorial and script also.. save lots of time ///

[@ragnakim]

Fantástic. Thank you.

[@jeenavinodkumar5902]

Thank u so much sir. 🙏

[@adrianosullivanOfficial]

Thanks for this, great tip. One thing. Is there a way to increase the baseline shift on the cursor? On some fonts, it's lower than it should be. Thanks again

[@eduardoalcantara9623]

Hi. For those who have the following error in the second expression: "Property or method named 'ADBE Text Index End' in Class 'Group' is missing or does not exist. It may have been renamed, moved, deleted, or the name may have been mistyped" A fix that I found is to first enter the third expression exactly as it says in 4:14 says, which is text("ADBE Text Document").length; and then, forget about the second expression. Just use the Pick Whip tool and grab from Start to End. That way, it will fill automatically the Start expression field. The last step is adding "-1" to that new expression, so you have something like whatever.your.expression.is - 1 It should work now by changing to Index as in further steps, and most importantly, not including break lines in the text field, because it won't work, at least in my case. Thanks

[@mimaiu]

tysm omg 😭🫂

[@mimaiu]

tysm omg 😭🫂

[@Alaa.bencze]

Thank you so much, the expression works well. The only thing is the entire thind is blinking not just the cursor, do you know why?

[@dmitrivozhakov]

Thank you, bro! what if i want it to blink with different colors every time, like purple-blue-orange-green-yellow in a row?

[@AndersWaltz]

Thank you so much for this awesome tut! Questions: 1) Is there a way to keep the last character (in my case underscore _) a different font weight? 2) Is there a way to have some words in a different font weight? Thanks!

[@obadashammout]

thanks

[@jonathannielsen]

Thanks! Is there a way to avoid the kerning getting affected? I'm not able to control the kerning when the expression is applied.

[@AmpedUpTech]

Thanks. Got to learn a new thing today. BTW, if you would have added the typing sound, the video would have been complete. 🙂

[@ShantanuBaviskar]

Characters can't be bold/italic later on. If you want that then everything in the text layer need to adapt that property

[@sharmisthapal856]

Many thanks for this. I have one question. How do I increase the distance between the text and cursor. The way it is executing on my end currently with my chosen font, I would like the cursor to appear at the end of typing to appear little further away from the last text character. Thank you in advance.

[@shaunZ96]

how would you change the blinking cursor size? like a square

[@AndersWaltz]

Thaank god for you!

[@idfkam]

now what i want too do in make the blinking line at the end bigger like in knd is that a thing?

[@balakay612]

If you've got a multiline text layer (with hard returns), you may notice the cursor color either breaks or gets offset. Here's what I did to fix that (bear in mind I changed some references, but the concepts remain the same). This goes in the Animator 1 Start property: _index = effect("Text")("Slider"); _newlines = text.sourceText.slice(0, parseInt(_index)).match(/ /g); text.animator("Animator 1").selector("Range Selector 1").end - (1 + (_newlines != null ? _newlines.length : 0)); (There's probably a cleaner way to reference things here, but this works!)

[@julianeinfachju4897]

I love you. Big kiss. I needed this Thanks :)

[@xy4077]

Thank you so much! For those who still get an offset: Make sure you're using hard returns! The code doesn't recognize soft returns

[@rohithirpara5136]

How can i add checkbox control for on/off cursor when edit text

[@yourmovies3013]

Hi there, it's a great tutorial, thank you! When I use this effect, the collor of the cursor changes when I use a 'enter' in an alinea. Is there a solution for this?

[@supunarunasinghe9900]

Can we use this effect when several fonts in the sentence?

[@kevinaknezic]

Anyone have an idea on how I could change the font-weight and color of JUST the cursor. He shows the color change, but the font-weight seems to be locked to the text it is pacing out to. My font is pretty bold, and I'd like the cursor to be skinny so it doesn't look so much like a character.

[@ARmy2510]

How to change color of the text? Like parcticular words? Cause "Characters" window does not work here.

[@workoholekhh7542]

How to make this work for RTL texts? Typing right from left texts for other languages

[@peterkondratowicz456]

is there a way to animate by word rather than by character? Tried changing it to animate by word under "animator 1 > range selector 1 > advanced > based on > words" but that didn't work

[@rohithirpara5136]

how to add slider control for cursor blink speed

[@kelvinazibisa5809]

I want to change the cursor to a different font but it keeps changing the whole text. Help Thanks

[@ZeeJohansen]

Using a multiple-line text field for the effect and had a problem where the last word jumped down to the next line and back, fixed it by making the text box a little bit wider, if anybody gets the same problem ;)

[@johanj701]

Yes you should move the slider as per the length of your text. and check "text.sourceText.substr(0,parseInt(i)) + end;" if the num is 0. But my problem on mac is different. The moment I activate the slider control, it centres the paragraph. It doest let me make it left or right aligned text.

[@ZeeJohansen]

@@johanj701 that sounds weird, I just did a test in AE 2021 with both a paragraph text field and single-line and both worked and I'm able to change the text alignment too. Check your anchor points on your text fields when you change the alignment, other than that I can seem to replicate your bug :/

[@luke.exe.]

How do I get the effect to not move my entire text box and text while typing it?

[@mzee2844]

why does my cursor start the slider from the centre on the text instead of like yours left to right???

[@underwater372]

How to reduce cursor size ? Its too big

[@MattRuddPB]

Hi, thanks for this, great stuff! Followed your instructions precisely but when my cursor blinks, it shifts the preceding text a few pixels to the left with each blink. Any ideas how to correct this? Thanks!

[@goddardmakes]

Hi Matt, try changing your paragraph setting on the text layer to left align text. That worked for me.

[@loiclaynell]

@@goddardmakes worked for me thanks

[@marks9493]

@@goddardmakes Thanks for the tip!

[@shaktirajjadejaart2711]

The link to "EXPRESSIONS" is not working. Kindly share the Expressions here in Comments section...

[@suzanneholmgren2199]

Why does it only work on the first row?

[@itsfahmi3445]

Why my project is not blinking like that? 🙂

[@rafaelmasinde9174]

the expression doesn't work on my after effects

[@cheezw1z]

I just copied the code you've provided for the cursor color but I couldn't get it to work. it says Error: property or method named 'ADBE Text Index End' in Class 'Group' is missing or does not exist. It may have been renamed, moved, deleted, or the name may have been mistyped

[@renasedlmeier]

same problem here

[@exebios]

Yea same probleme @Maxwell Ridgeway

[@system2213]

Would've been nice if you put the expression in the actual description so we don't have to click some link that could easily be a virus

[@nestor8746]

Is there a way to make it stop blinking at the end when you're finished with the line? Sort of symbolizing that a message has been sent...

[@idfkam]

best way i found is i copied the text removed the effect on the copy and ended the effect text and started the non effected text thus the line is gone

[@KELLMANMARTINEZMENESES]

@@idfkam You can also animated the Checkbox

[@jimbev4]

How do you make the cursor BIGGER? Like a square????

[@AnneCTH03]

By changing the first scentence in the expression from var sign = "|"; to var sign = "■";

[@DiegoInmune]

what should I do if my text is in 2 or 3 lines? the cursor color only works on the first line

[@MaxwellRidgeway]

For that I would probably create three seperate text lines, each with the effect embeded. So it doesn't interfere with each other etc..

[@DiegoInmune]

@@MaxwellRidgeway oooh yes! You got it, thanks man!

[@Farns77]

Change the Start expression in the animator to '2'.... text.animator("ADBE Text Animator")("ADBE Text Selectors")("ADBE Text Selector")("ADBE Text Index End") - 2;

[@pipogardenal]

@@Farns77 no man, that changes the color of the second last character

[@Farns77]

@@pipogardenal worked for me. But you could always nest the comp, make it black and white then use it as a matte.

[@600pankaj]

Can we add 2 colors in text ??

[@petercarlson5261]

This is my problem. With any of these expression based typewriter effects I use, it changes my text to one color when I am using 2 different colors. It's really causing me issues.

[@abbycohen3726]

I can get the color to work, but then halfway through, it reverts back. Any ideas why that might happen?

[@ishlibidish87]

same problem. When I paste the end cursor color expression and had it to index it colored the whole thing

[@valentina050394]

The expression doesnt work for me

[@loiclaynell]

@@elenarssk2795 try to name the expressions as same as on the video : "Text" "On/Off"

[@loiclaynell]

try to name the expressions as same as on the video : "Text" "On/Off"

[@vatsaldoshi7270]

The expression doesn't seem to work. Please help.

[@anirbanghosh7869]

Yes Me too!

[@loiclaynell]

@@anirbanghosh7869 try to name the expressions as same as on the video : "Text" "On/Off"

[@loiclaynell]

try to name the expressions as same as on the video : "Text" "On/Off"

[@user-wn3gk5yb4o]

expression doesn't work

[@loiclaynell]

try to name the expressions as same as on the video : "Text" "On/Off"

[@LTMT20]

Hey where is the code

[@pipogardenal]

right there on the description: www.mediafire.com/file/1wq3q1udzn5n7qb/file

[@Dan_K_Meme]

The cursor moves my text

[@luke.exe.]

same

[@Dan_K_Meme]

@@luke.exe. I think you have to align it to the left

[@prashantjadhav5617]

what is this nonsense tutorial

[@acmejia]

Awesome tutorial!! Thanks!!

[@rafaelmasinde9174]

the expression doesn't work on my after effects

[@loiclaynell]

try to name the expressions as same as on the video : "Text" "On/Off"