Auto-adjusting blinking cursor | After Effects Tutorial

[@MESHK0FF]

Thanks for idea Advantage: Full control over cursor Downside: scale range selector will not treat space as scale increase, so cursor will jump through any text space to beginning of the next word, looks a little bit clunky.

[@EvilDogFilmsOfficial]

For me the formula had to be w=effect("Layer Control")("Layer"); [w.sourceRectAtTime(w.sourceTime()).width] Including the sourceTime() to account for placement on the timeline and also clip shifting

[@imanidioli]

your modification saved my day .... thanx

[@EvilDogFilmsOfficial]

@@imanidioli The amount of time I found that one comment that saved me hours of headaches, glad I'm finally the one helping someone :D

[@imanidioli]

@@EvilDogFilmsOfficial 🙌

[@geoffreybellec8833]

Saved me too thank you man! 🙏

[@princeepaphras861]

Best and most helpful comment that saved the day

[@gtiboogiemann]

Amazing tutorial perfect for a very specific animation I must do for work!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

That’s great to hear!

[@amritaaryan]

Gr8 tutorial. Really helpful. One thing I want to add is rather than adding the scale property and then animating it, u can simply use the 'Typewriter' effect from the effects panel. It's just a preset of the same animation. I hope u find it helpful

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Awesome! Thanks very much for the tip!

[@AugustMarlin]

Only that you have to replace default 'opacity' animator with 'scale', as the width won't change otherwise ;)

[@dancu9271]

A lot of thanks for making and sharing your awesome video!!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You’re welcome!

[@dancu9271]

a lot of thanks for making and sharing your video!!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You’re welcome!

[@Soody_choi]

감사합니다, 유용했어요. 그런데 한번 봐서는 잘 외워지지 않아서 자주 와서 볼게요. Typewriter 효과중에 가장 마음에 듭니다.

[@ManueldoesMotion]

That's awesome!

[@madebydbm]

That's very clever. It's an effect I find myself making a lot but I've always done it manually, hadn't thought to link the cursor to the text width. Thanks!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Awesome! I used to do it manually as well, which was really annoying. So I started to play around a little bit :)

[@JosepMotion]

It worked! This was pretty useful right now. THANKS!!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You’re welcome!

[@entidadalan4967]

Fantastic Manuel. Thank you teacher. So good! ✌🏻🍀💫💫🍀

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thanks very much! So happy you like it!

[@MayAai00]

thank you so much for sharing this!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You’re welcome!

[@veryseriousperson]

Awesome...What if I want to use it in Arabic language which text starts from right to left...I tried to use it but the cursor moves towards the opposite direction..

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You have to invert the width value. By adding another line: w=effect("Layer Control")("Layer"); inv = w.sourceRectAtTime().width*-1; [inv] You probably have to adjust the position of the cursor.

[@unfoldlab]

Magic tutorial!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thanks!

[@daimonxart8253]

For some reason the null object lags behind the writing, as if it didn't continue but it did just like that, I don't know what it would be.

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Did you move a layer in the timeline?

[@wendyhuang3667]

what if i have 2 lines of text? The width only gets one line.... please help

[@ManueldoesMotion]

This works for just one line. I would add a second text layer.

[@codelearning9624]

Fantastic!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thanks!!

[@onclebobify]

Hello Manuel! And thank you for a very nice tutorial. I have a small problem I need your help with. The Width slider is not updating with the right value at the beginning of the animation. So for example, when I have the 4 first letter of my first word the width is still showing 0,00. When the width of the text layer is bigger than the with of my null object then it begins to move the null object. Do you have any idea my I get this delay? I tried resizing the noll object without any success. Thanx again!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Hi Alexandre, sorry for my delayed response. I am on holiday this week. Could it be the anchor point position of the Null Object? I’ll look into the project next week to see what else it might be.

[@nyetre7665]

THANK YOUUU!

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You’re so welcome!

[@JosepMotion]

I was doing a 3 text lines with this. I kept getting an strange error when duplicating the 3 items (text, null and cursor) and updating the expressions and even the layer control: Null stopped working when updating the "Source Text". After a lot of trial and error I was able to fix it, by deactivating the expressions before updating the "Source Text".

[@ManueldoesMotion]

When I need several lines of text, the easiest way for me is to copy the comp in the project window and simply use a separate comp for each line.

[@ManueldoesMotion]

I’ll try it with deactivating the expressions.

[@KamranKhan-hc2sp]

grate tutorial really helped a lot...

[@ManueldoesMotion]

That's awesome!

[@1379rooms]

Amazing tutorial, thanks you for it ! I have one issue, the whole expression doesn't work if everything is not at the very beginning of my comp. To be clear, if the layers are in the middle of my comp, the width value won't change. Do you have any idea why ? Tshüss :)

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Generally, if you have expressions. Never move layers around, that will mess it up. If you want the animation to start later, you need to move the keyframes along your timeline.

[@1379rooms]

@@ManueldoesMotion very clever solution ! thank you so much for the tip :)

[@nicolas-he2oe]

great tutorial, though i tested it and i dont think it works for multiple lines

[@ManueldoesMotion]

It works for 1 line.

[@maxmccabe9221]

Thanks Manuel! I use this all the time. Is there a way to make the cursor go down to the next line after a paragraph break?

[@ManueldoesMotion]

That's awesome! I'll think about a way to do it...

[@samirdesigner3324]

thanks how make this to presets to we can use to any time by one click ???

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You're welcome! I think it can't be saved as preset. I would save the comp somewhere and import it whenever you need it.

[@Leyero_editor]

First expression doesn't update slider value, rechecked it multiple times

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You might want to check out the project file…

[@EvilDogFilmsOfficial]

For me I needed to do to make sure you don't get any weird time offset based on where the clip is on the timeline and how offseter it is on itself w=effect("Layer Control")("Layer"); [w.sourceRectAtTime(w.sourceTime()).width]

[@victoriaprado739]

@@EvilDogFilmsOfficial Save me! Thank u!

[@hellofilmeditor]

amazing

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thanks very much!

[@wasimnatfaji6342]

Width idea not working if you have multiple lines

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Yeah it only works for 1 line of text.

[@vlopez5]

Genio total !

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Thanks!

[@samirdesigner3324]

how to use to RTL ?

[@ManueldoesMotion]

What is RTL?

[@samirdesigner3324]

@@ManueldoesMotion right-to-left (RTL)

[@ManueldoesMotion]

@@samirdesigner3324 That should work as well. You need to right align the text. Then subtract the width from the position instead of adding it.

[@Martu45919]

GRACIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS

[@ManueldoesMotion]

You're welcome!

[@thatGreninjaGuy]

Not a hate comment but this was very complicated and it didn't work for me . perhaps I did something wrong but I have no idea what was going on and since I did not understand i cannot even spot what went wrong for me, tried watching it 2-3 times and it got more Messier.. You really need to slow down or maybe explain in a different way.

[@grafinject]

Hi :)

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Hi!;)

[@tonnas1328]

this way when you not need to enter

[@vishfactz6007]

Everything just went above my head lol :|

[@ManueldoesMotion]

Why?

[@Marforaep]

Yo

[@ManueldoesMotion]

What's up?

[@TehAuroraWolf]

dude you need to slow down a bit with this tutorial. I had to back track so many times because I missed something you said way too quickly to follow through perfectly.

[@EricsCastenowDrive]

Doesn't fucking work. Good job

[@ManueldoesMotion]

👍🏻