Text Anarchy 2.

Plug-ins for Adobe After Effects

and compatible applications

Designed by: Jim Tierney

Programming: Garrick Meeker

© 2003 Digital Anarchy, Inc.

 Table of Contents

Introduction and Overview 07

From Elements: Text to Text Anarchy 07
Support and Stuff 07

Installation and Registration 08

Macintosh (After Effects) 08
Macintosh (Final Cut Pro) 08
Windows (After Effects) 08
Registration 08

Section I : Options Box 09

Multiple Fonts pop-up 09
Sequential Fonts checkbox 09
Whole Lines checkbox 10
Sequential Lines checkbox 10
The ʻLockʼ Buttons 10

Section II : Common Parameters 11

Overview 11
Randomness 11
How Randomness Works 12
Text Position 12
Rate Of Change and ROC Randomness 12
Font Size and FS Randomness 13
Font Size Rate Of Change and FS ROC Randomness 13
Font Size Group pop-up 13
Color 14
Alt Color and Alt Color Tolerance 14
Alt Color Rate of Change and Randomness 14
Tracking 14
Exponential Tracking and ET Position Point 15
Kerning 15
Show Kerning Pair 15
Kerning Pair 15
Kerning Amount 16
Kerning Data 16
Leading 16
Length Of Lines pop-up, Length of Lines slider 16
Baseline Shift 17
Alignment 17
Character Rotation and Rotation Randomness 18
Hinting 18
Preset Characters 18
Vertical Writing 18
Lower/Upper Character Limit 19
Random Characters 19
Randomness Seed 20

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 2

 Table of Contents

Section III : Cool Text 21

Introduction 21
Options Dialog 21
Covered in the Common Parameters 22
Effect Parameters 22
Type of Effect pop-up 22
Effect: Scale 23
Effect: Rotate and Rotation Axis 23
Effect: Opacity 24
Effect: Blur 24
Effect: Color 25
Position and Width 25
Amount 26
Time 26
Time To Return To Original Value checkbox 26
Donʼt Return to Original Position checkbox 27
Baseline For Effect 27
Affected Letters Only checkbox 27
Using Multiple Effects 28
Using Expressions 28
Path Controls 28
Path 29
Orient Character to Path 29
Path Start/End Point 29
Reverse Direction checkbox 29

Section IV : Font Changer 30

Introduction 30
Options Dialog 30
Covered in the Common Parameters 30
Sequential Fonts checkbox 31
Font Rate of Change 31
Randomize Font checkbox 32
Font Selector 32

Section V : Text Hacker 33

Introduction 33
Options Dialog (Read This!!) 33
Covered in the Common Parameters 34
Change Style pop-up 34
Source vs. Target 35
Random Characters 35
Time Between Targets 35
Lead Time 36
Hold Time 36
Rate of Change 36
Fade In/Out Extra Characters checkbox 37
Fade Time 37
Fade Together checkbox 37
Lock EC ROC to ROC checkbox 37
Extra Characters ROC 37
Reverse When Completed checkbox 37

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 3

 Table of Contents

Section VI : Text Spiral 38

Read This First 38
Introduction 38
Options Dialog 38
Covered in the Common Parameters Section 38
Sequential Fonts 39
Global Parameters 39
Text Position 39
Font Size Rate Of Change and FS ROC Randomness 39
Begin = End 40
Path Controls 40
Wrap Text 40
Preset Path 41
Path Size 41
Path Start/End Point 41
Character Perpindicular to Path 41
Reverse Direction checkbox 41

Section VII : TypeOn 43

Introduction 43
Options Dialog 43
Covered in the Common Parameters 43
Color, Alt Color, and Frequency of Alt Color 43
Overwrite 44
Completion and Completion Randomness 44
Type-On 44
Down 44
Cursor 44
Cursor Blink Speed 44
Invert Text 44
Text Blink Speed 44

Section VIII : Text Matrix 45

Introduction 45
Options Dialog 45
Covered in the Common Parameters 45
Characters Section 46
Character Spin 47
Color and Leading Character Color 47
Color Blending 47
Streams Section 48
Center of Streams and Center Randomness 48
Number of Streams 48
Length of Stream and LoS Randomness 48
Speed and Speed Randomness 49
Time Between Streams 49
Direction of Streams and Direction Randomness 50
Snap To Grid Checkbox 50
Auto-Point Size/Spacing Checkbox 50
New Streams Overtake Old Checkbox 51
No New Streams 51
Stream Spacing and Attributes Section 51

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 4

 Table of Contents

Section VIII : Text Matrix (cont.)

Space Between Streams and Randomness 51
Space Between Characters and Randomness 51
Fade In and Fade Out 52
Opacity and Opacity Randomness 52
Time Offset 52
Path Controls Section 53
Limitations to Paths 53
Preset Path 54
Path Size 54
Text Path 54
Orient Character to Path 54
Reverse Direction checkbox 54
Path Start/End Point 55

Section IX : Text Grid 56

Introduction 56
Options Dialog 56
Covered in the Common Parameters 56
Character Attributes Section 57
Color, Random Color, and Frequency of Color 57
Grid Setup Section 57
Grid Position 57
Rows and Columns 58
Space Between Rows/Columns, and Randomness 58
Moving Rows and Columns checkbox 58
Jitter Section 58
Row Jitter and Column Jitter 59
Jitter Frequency and JF Randomness 59
Flow Section 59
Flow Speed 59
Flow Direction 60
Change During Flow checkbox 60
Magnify Section 60
Read This Part! 60
Magnify Position 61
Magnify Strength 61
Magnify Width and Height 61
Magnify Taper 61
Mixing Maginify 1 and 2 61
Using Expressions 62

Section X : Screen Text 63

Introduction 63
Options Dialog 63
Covered in the Common Parameters 63
Font Size Randomness 64
Starting Point 64
Length of Lines and Length Randomness 64
Scroll Speed 64
Frequency of Overwrite 64
Color, Random Color, and Frequency of Random Color 65

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 5

 Table of Contents

Section X : Screen Text (cont.)

Vertical Alignment 65
Lock To Grid 65
Space Between Lines and SBL Randomness 65
Space Between Characters and SBC Randomness 66
Direction of Lines 66
Display Speed 66
DS Controls Scroll Speed 66

Sidebars (Throughout Manual)

Common Parameters - Import or Input 09
Common Parameters - Play with Your Text 11
Common Parameters - Rate of Change Isnʼt Fractional 13
Common Parameters - Wiggle Your Text 14
Common Parameters - Invisible Colors 14
Common Parameters - Kerning and Tracking 16
Common Parameters - Reach for Your Limits 19
Cool Text versus Text Spiral 21
Cool Text - Whereʼs the Hide Effect Button? 23
Cool Text - Cool Columns of Opacity 24
Cool Text - Scale Characters One by One 25
Cool Text - Going Outside the Amount 26
Cool Text - Subtracting Effects: De-Blur 27
Cool Text - Repeat the Same Effect for Effect 28
Text Spiral - Know Where You Start and End 29
Common Parameters - Illustrator and Photoshop Paths 30
Common Parameters - Monospaced Fonts 32
Text Hacker - Many Targets, Many Fonts 34
Text Hacker - Excess Character 35
Text Hacker, TypeOn, Screen Text - One Line At A Time 36
Text Spiral - Different from the Others 39
Text Spiral - Wrapped Text 40
Text Spiral - When to Use Begin = End 41
Text Spiral - Wrap Text with Start/End Points 42
Type On versus Screen Text 44
TypeOn - Typewriters versus Computers 45
Text Matrix - Smoothly Down Stream, er, Screen 49
Text Matrix - Stream of Streams 53
Text Matrix - Time Offset and Keyframes 54
Text Grid - Mono y Mono 58
Text Grid - Through a Magnification Glass 62
Screen Text - Length Randomness Catches Mono 63
Screen Text - Scroll Speed Controls Many Things 65
Screen Text - Old Lines Out 66

Appendix A: ASCII Codes 67

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 6

 Introduction and Overview

From Elements: Text to Text Anarchy

Annouching Text Anarchy 2.0, a set of eight filters for After Effects and
Final Cut Pro. Based on the best selling Elements of Anarchy: Text 1.0
package, Text Anarchy dramatically expands the softwareʼs functionality
and potential.

Two years ago, Elements was created primarily to address the need for
text ʻelementsʼ, animated text for use as background design elements. Our
customers pushed the three Elements plug-ins, though, to look as much
towards titling as texture creation. Weʼve had a lot of requests to take the
Elements of Anarchy filter set farther. So, we did.

The five new plug-ins added to Text Anarchy 2.0 are designed for artists
doing work in which text characters will be in the forefront and used as a
main component of the design.

Whether its visual background noise, text as a texture, Flash--like titling,

or flashing words to reinforce concept, text is an important element of
your composition, and our goal too bring you inexpensive, powerful, fun
filters. Text is traditionally one of the more difficult tasks to animate in most
applications. We aim to simplify that with these eight tools.

Support and Stuff

We hope that you find Text Anarchy to give you all the control you could
want, while simple enough that you can set everything up in a few minutes.
Itʼs our desire to make sure youʼre satisfied with your purchase, and if you
have any questions, comments, or whatever, weʼd love to hear them.

If thereʼs anything youʼd like to see added to any of the filters,

perhaps a completely different effect that youʼd like to see a plug-in
for, or would just like to say hello…definitely send an email to us at
[email protected].

If you have any technical problems or questions related to the filters,

please send an email to [email protected]. Or, you can contact
us at +001-415-621-0991, US Pacific Time.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 7

 Installation and Registration

Macintosh (After Effects)

Launch the Text Anarchy installer. In the main window, youʼll see a pop-up
in the upper left corner that asks you to select your version of After Effects.
Text Anarchy supports versions 5.0 and up. It is important that you select
the correct version for OS 9 or X. Only the version for After Effects 5.5 is
OS X native.

Once youʼve selected the correct version, in the lower part of the window
is the installation destination. Click on ʻSelect Locationʼ and navigate to
your After Effects ʻPluginʼ folder. You are now ready to install. Click the
Install button.

Macintosh (Final Cut Pro)

Once youʼve launched the installer, this process is slightly different for
users of Final Cut Pro under OS X. Youʼll need to find the Final Cut ʻPlug-
insʼ folder in your Shared Library or User Preferences folder, and put the
plug-ins in there.

If youʼre installing to the shared resources, your path will be something

like this: Hard Drive> Library> Application Support> Final Cut Pro System
Support> Plugins. Or, if youʼre installing for a particular user, the path will
read: Hard Drive> Users> [User Name]> Library> Preferences> Final Cut
Pro User Data> Plugins. Check your Final Cut Pro manual for more help.

Windows (After Effects)

Launch the Text Anarchy installer and click the ʻNextʼ button until you get
to the ʻLocate Destinationʼ screen. Click on ʻBrowseʼ and select the After
Effects plug-in folder. Click ʻNextʼ.

The next screen asks you which version of After Effects youʼll be installing
for. Select the appropriate version and click Next. If you donʼt select the
appropriate version, the plug-in may crash or not perform as expected.

You are ready to install. The installer will show a screen informing you of
this. Click the ʻNextʼ button to begin installation.

Registration
Registration occurs when you purchase the filter. We register you in our
database using the contact information you supplied upon purchase, and
the serial number weʼve given you.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 8

 Section I : Options Box

The Options Box is where Text Anarchy filters begin. You choose the font
(or fonts) youʼre going to use. Youʼll type text into the empty Text Field.
Import an ASCII-based text file via the Load or Import button. Or copy/
paste from that file into the text field.

For some filters, like Text Hacker, filling this Text Field in a specific way
is essential to the plug-in performing properly. For others, such as Text
Grid, you may want to leave that field blank to take advantage of their
ʻRandom Charactersʼ option [see Common Parameters].

Multiple Fonts pop-up

When you apply some of the filters, the initial dialog box that appears will
have five font pop-up boxes. These pop-ups allow you to choose and use
multiple fonts with the filters. Any pop-up left blank will be ignored.

Multiple Fonts, basically, takes the functionality of the Font Changer filter,
Import or Input and stuffs it into the dialog box of other filters like Cool Text.
The text characters can
either be generated In your filter parameters, if Font Rate of Change is set to 0, then the filter
randomly, hand-entered will randomly cycle through the fonts that youʼve specified. See Font ROC
by yourself, or imported in this section for more details.
from an ASCII-based text
file.
If Font Rate of Change is set to anything other than 0, the filter will cycle
To input text, type the through the fonts in order. All characters will change from one font to
text youʼd like to use in another. Thereʼs no way to have only some of the characters change. The
the initial dialog box. To only exception to this is the Text Hacker filter [see that section for more
import text, click the Load details].
button to navigate to a
.TXT file as youʼd create in
MS Word or Notepad or
TextEdit.
Note: The 5 popups can cause a
delay in applying the filter. If you
have a lot of fonts it can take a
little while for the filter to launch.
Use something like Adobe Type
Manager or Suitcase to load and
unload fonts you donʼt use often.

Sequential Fonts checkbox

For filters with the Multiple Fonts option, If the Sequential Fonts checkbox
is selected, the characters will change fonts in a sequential order. Going

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 9

 down the list of Multiple Fonts, the animation will start off as Font 1,
change to Font 2, then to Font 3, and so on.

If Sequential Fonts is not selected, then a font will be chosen randomly

from the fonts that have been selected.

Whole Lines checkbox

Option Checkboxes
Whole Lines tells the filters wth this parameter to by default sequentially
The TOP example has display whole lines. Whole Lines are identified by a ʻhard returnʼ. The
both Whole Lines and
filter goes through the text field or file, identifies a complete lines, displays
Sequential Lines turned
on. This results in the filter it, then begins a new line.
just playing back the text
you entered. If Whole Lines is turned OFF, then words are displayed. With words, filters
like Text Matrix look for spaces between the words.
The BOTTOM has both
turned off. This gives us
randomly selected words. Sequential Lines checkbox
Thereʼs also a checkbox for reading the text sequentially. This is turned
on by default. This means that the file is read from beginning to end, with
no random jumping around. If Sequential Lines is OFF, words or lines are
picked at random to be displayed.

If ʻWhole Linesʼ is checked as well, the result will be, in the case of Text
Matrix, that the first stream displayed gets the first line, the second stream
gets the second line of text, the third streams gets the third line, and so on.
Otherwise, words just get inserted into the streams sequentially, with no
attention paid to where the lines begin and end.

The ʻLockʼ Buttons

For filters that use a particle system, each stream, line, or character
can have its own set of attributes. The ʻLockʼ buttons determine if these
attributes change over time, or whether theyʼre ʻLockedʼ in place when the
stream, line, or character is created and first displayed on the screen.

If ʻLockʼ is NOT selected (e.g. Lock Color), as you animate a parameter

(say, Color), everything on the screen will change. Animating from red to
green to blue will cause all the characters on the screen to change from
red to green to blue.

However, if ʻLockʼ IS selected, then whatever value the stream or line was
created with, will stay with it. Only new streams/lines will be affected by
the keyframed value. In the case of Color, that means the streams created
first would be red, streams created a little later would be green, and
streams created last would be blue.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 10

 Section II : Common Parameters

Overview
Many of the filters share common parameters. These parameters behave
the same regardless of what filter theyʼre in. To avoid having to repeat
these in each filter, weʼll cover them once here.
Play with Your Text
You can use almost any If any of the parameters have special attributes in one filter or another,
Truetype or Postscript Type they will be mentioned again under that parameter and further explained.
1 font, including dingbats. Any parameter listed in this section which appears elsewhere will have a
Here weʼve chosen a note attached to it telling you under what filters it has special features.
font that has Chinese
characters.
In each section devoted to a specific filter, look for the ʻCovered in the
Common Parametersʼ section. This will give you a list of parameters to
refer back to this Common Parameters section for their specifics.

Randomness
Also, be sure to experiment Youʼll see many Randomness parameters. They usually look something
with typing in special like SBL Randomness or TBS Randomness. The ʻSBLʼ or ʻTBSʼ simply refer
characters – like our back to the parameter that the Randomness slider affects. For example,
favorite %#*@&?! – when SBL is Space Between Lines, and TBS is Time Between Streams. This will
the computer crashes, for
usually be obvious, since the Randomness slider appears directly below
interesting results.
the parameter it affects.

Randomness allows certain attributes to vary. This plays a bigger role in

filters like Text Matrix where text is generated randomly. However, even
in filters like Cool Text, which uses specific text input, there are some
attributes that are affected by Randomness.

Each character (and/or stream) is assigned a different value when

Randomness is set to anything other than 0. This is easy to see in the
Font Size Randomness paramter. As you increase the FS Randomness
parameter, some characters grow larger, some smaller. Each character is
being assigned a different Font Size.

Think about playing with Font Size is 48 points. TOP:

monospaced fonts, too. Font Size Randomness set
Hereʼs an example in Text to 10. BOTTOM: Font Size
Grid of mono-spaced fonts Randomness set to 100.
vs. regular fonts. Notice
the spacing irregularities
in the regular font image.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 11

 How Randomness Works
The Randomness slider sets a percentage. This creates a range around the
associated parameterʼs value. Say Font Size is set to 16, and Randomness
is set to 50%. This would create a range of 16 +/- 50% or 8 to 24. Each
character is then assigned a value within this range.

You can set the Randomness to more than 100%. If a parameter can go
negative then this will result in a range of something like –8 to 40. In the
case of something like Font Size, 3 is the lowest minimum value, so the
range is limited on the lower end, but not on the higher end. Font Size set
to 16 and Randomness set to 600% would result in a range of 3 to 96.

Hey, not only did you get a filter set, but you get a FREE algebra lesson as
well. What a deal! Weʼll be offering Ginzu knifes in no time.

Text Position
This sets where the text will appear on the screen. You can move this
Position point anywhere, including off the layer in case you want to
animate the text coming in from off screen, stage left.

Text Position sets the starting point of the text regardless of whether a path
has been assigned to it or not. The text on a path will start from this point
NOT from where the first point in the path is. Text will follow the path
shape from the Text Position point, so where you drew the first point in the
path is irrelevant.

In the example above, youʼll notice that the text is following the shape of
the path, but itʼs not starting from the position of the first point on the path.
The text is starting at the Text Position point.

Rate Of Change and ROC Randomness

These are extremely important properties. They controls how often the
characters change. By default Rate of Change is set to change every
frame (1.0). There are plenty of instances where you might not want the
characters to change so rapidly, however.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 12

 The value of Change is in frames, so if you set it to 3.0, the characters will
change every 3 frames. Set it to 30, and the characters will change every
second (assuming a 30fps movie). Very useful if you donʼt want characters
changing so quickly that youʼre viewers canʼt make out what they are.
Particularly important if youʼre using a ʻsymbolʼ or ʻclip artʼ font.

The Randomness varies how frequently each character changes. The Rate
of Change will fall in a range around the value that the Rate of Change is
set to +/- a percentage of the Rate of Change value. See the chart in the
appendix for more information on how this works.

Font Size and FS Randomness

Font Size is pretty self-explanatory. Itʼs simply how big the letters are.
If youʼre familiar with any word processor or graphics application that
handles text, this should be old hat. The larger the point size, the bigger
Rate of Change the character.
Isnʼt Fractional
Setting Rate of Chnage Font Size will impact other parameters, like the spacing of the streams.
to less than 1 has no real The larger the font size, the more space that is put between streams,
effect, as itʼs impossible characters, rows, columns.
to change the characters
more often than once a
frame. Font Size Randomness, like all the ʻRandomnessʼ sliders youʼll run into,
controls the variation in the point size of each character.
Well, itʼs possible, but you
wonʼt see any difference
between 1 and .5 (or Font Size Rate Of Change and FS ROC Randomness
whatever), so not much
point to it.
Use this if you want the Font Size of your character or words to vary over
time. This parameter sets how frequently you want the size to change,
Of course, if you really measured in frames. If you set it to something like 4, then every 4 frames
feel the need to get your the font size will change for all characters.
moneyʼs worth, and want
to make that thar software Font Size Rate Of Change and its Randomness param work in conjunction
work like itʼs never worked
with the Font Size Group pop-up.
before, well then, ʻyou go,
girlʼ (or boy or whatever).

Font Size Group pop-up

When the font size changes, this pop-up determines what changes. If
characters are selected then each character gets itʼs own font size. If
ʻwordsʼ is selected each word is given a font size and the characters
within that word all get that font size. If ʻlinesʼ are selected then all words
and characters on that line get the same font size.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 13

 Color
As will no doubt come as a surprise to many of you, this sets the color the
text. Thatʼs it. No fancy crazy tips, tricks, secret uber-moves or anything
else. Just makes your text pretty colors.

Wiggle Your Text Alt Color and Alt Color Tolerance

To add movement to a This causes some characters to get a different color than other characters.
composition, make your You control how much of the text is this second color by adjusting the Alt
text wiggle. Itʼs really easy Color Tolerance. If Alt Color Tolerance is set to 100% then all the text will
to create this animation in
be colored by the Alt Color. If Alt Color Tolerance is set to 50%, then half
any of the filters using only
one parameter: Font Size
the characters of the text will be the Alt Color and so on.
Randomness.

For instance, set the

Font Size to 48 pixels.
Then keyframe Font
Size Randmness at 15-
30 percentage. Let the
randomness get higher,
lower, then high again.
Your fonts will change
size.

These stills are captured

with Font Size Randomness
Alt Color Rate of Change and Randomness
set to 37, then 9. Alt color provides a way to add color randomly to the text. If left alone,
itʼll cause characters to turn a different color randomly every frame.

The Rate of Change parameter allows you to control how frequently

characters change color. It is set in frames. This determines how frequently
Invisible Colors the characters change between one color and another. You can have
This composition has the the Alt Color change which characters itʼs affecting, creating a blinking
Random Color set to effect.
the Background color,
Black, which makes some
characters invisible. Tracking
This is a characterisitc that everyone should be familiar with from
Photoshop, Illustrator, or your favorite page layout program. Tracking
sets a uniform space between each letter. Increasing this value spreads
the characters farther apart, decreasing it pushes them closer together.

In fact, if you decrease Tracking enough, you can go negative and move
the characters in the opposite direction. Tracking can produce some very
interesting animations, especially with Text Spiral.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 14

 Exponential Tracking and ET Position Point
Exponential Tracking acts as a multiplier to regular Tracking. By adjusting
this parameter, characters towards the end of a sentence will have more
space in between them than characters at the beginning of the sentence.
Take a look at an example:

Youʼll notice how things are much more spaced out towards the right side
of the image. Also notice that the first 3 characters seem to be spaced
normally.

This is due to the ET Position Point, which sets the character that the effect
will start at. All characters after this point will have a multiplied tracking,
all characters before it will be unaffected by the Exponential Tracking
multiplier. This can create some interesting animations, especially if you
go from positive to negative.

ET Position Point will not help you locate extra-terrestrials, Entwives, or

your keys.

Kerning
Another parameter that should be familiar from the page layout world.
Kerning allows you to adjust the spacing between individual letters. This
can be very important for titles, or any composition that needs precise
typography.

You select which pair of letters you wish to adjust, then use the Kerning
Amount slider to make the adjustment. This section is comprised a few
parameters, as follows.

Show Kerning Pair

This turns on a cursor (a yellow line) that allows you to visually see what
characters youʼre kerning between.

Kerning Pair
Kerning Pair is, of course, the pair of letters youʼre kerning. If you have
Show Kerning Pair turned on, youʼll see a yellow line between these two
letters. Position the yellow line between the two characters you want to
kern, and then adjust Amount.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 15

 Kerning Amount
This sets the amount of space between the characters. It can either be
negative or positive. If itʼs negative, then characters may overlap. In fact
you can make it so negative that the last character in the line becomes the
first. Thatʼs not usually the use for kerning, but you can certainly use it that
way if youʼre so inclined.

Kerning and Tracking You may have noticed that the Amount slider is not animatable. Thatʼs
Many of you are familiar because the Amount slider only relates to the specific pair you have it
with these terms, but pointed at. Its not possible for the After Effects interface to account for all
they deserve a brief the possible pairs and allow you to set keyframes for them.
explanation, since the Text
Anarchy filters treat these
parameters differently in Kerning Data
terms of animation.
First things first. Kerning is not really meant to be animated. Its purpose is
Tracking sets the space to provide precise spacing between letters that might sit too close or too
between all characters in far away from each other.
a line/paragraph. Fully
animatable.
But if you really want to do animte Kerning, you can. Selecting the
Exponential Tracking takes Kerning Data button activates an underlying spreadsheet that allows you
and multiples the Tracking to animate Kerning. Essentially, Kerning Data is the keyframe switch for
value, beginning at the Kerning Amount, which refers back to Kerning Data for its values.
Position Point specified.
ET has built-in animated For example, if you take the word ʻDigitalʼ and look at it in most fonts,
properties, since its value
but Arial specifically, youʼll notice the space between the ʻtʼ and the ʻaʼ
increases over time.
appears to be less than the space between the ʻaʼ and the ʻlʼ. You might
Kerning is the term want to add a little bit more space before the ʻaʼ, and you would do this
given to specific spacing by kerning. Finding a way to allow you to do that was the first priority,
adjustments performed animating that was a distant second. That said…
on individual pairs of
characters within the same All the kerning data is saved in a table (like a spreadsheet). Every time
font, usually to enhance
you adjust kerning, change the pair, adjust kerning again, and so on
readability. By default,
Kerning isnʼt made for youʼre just updating this table. So, you can animate it, but itʼs fickle and
animation, but you can get may not give you the results you expect or want.
around this using Kerning
Data, Amount, and Pair
together. Leading
Leading sets the distance between lines in a paragraph. This is only of
consequence if you have multiple lines of text.

Length Of Lines pop-up, Length of Lines slider

These parameters allow you to set the length of lines in your paragraph.
This is very similar to setting the margins in a word processor. In fact this
behaves much like a word processor. If a word doesnʼt fit onto a line, it
will be wrapped to the next line.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 16

 The Length of Lines pop-up determines what unit of measurement youʼre
going to use. You have the option of pixels or characters. If you select
Characters, then once a line has reached the specified limit, the word that
goes over the limit will be wrapped to the next line. If you select Pixels
then the filter will calculate how many characters will fit into the given
number of pixels and wrap any word that goes over to the next line.

The big difference here is that if you specify Characters, then the lines
wonʼt change if you change the Font Size, Tracking, or any other
parameter that affects the amount of real estate a given line will take up.
If Pixels is selected then changing any of those parameters will result in
different words getting wrapped and your paragraphs will have more or
less lines than it did before any changes.

Pixels can be very useful if youʼre trying to stay within a specified area,
such as the Title Safe area for television broadcast.

Baseline Shift
The Baseline is the invisible line that the characters sit on and descenders,
like the tail of a ʻyʼ hang below. This allows you to adjust the text up or
down off the baseline. Since the layer that the filter is applied to can be
moved about as well as the overall text position, Baseline Shift has limited
value as it would normally be used.

When animated, especially with text on paths, it can produce some

interesting effects. Try using Baseline Shift with Text Spiral.

Alignment
This determines what alignment your paragraph will have. Just as youʼre
familiar with from word processors:

- Left lines the text up along the left margin (the left margin is a line that
goes straight up from the Text Position point)
- Right lines the text up along the right margin (set by the Length of Lines
parameter)
- Center centers the text between the Text Position and the boundary set
by Length of Lines
- Justify tries to evenly space the text out between the Text Position and
Length of Lines boundary.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 17

 Character Rotation and Rotation Randomness
This is the orientation of the characters. Unless this is animated it results in
no movement. The characters will all be rotated by whatever the value is.
If itʼs set to 45, then each character will be rotated by 45 degrees.

Use Character Rotation to precisely control the spin of characters. If you

Different Kinds just want to rotate the character by 180 degrees, itʼs much easier to do
of Spins it with this than Character Spin. Just set a keyframe for 0 at one point in
Character Rotation rotates time, and a keyframe for 180 at another point.
all characters by the
amount specified. Note As elsewhere, the Randomness varies the amount of rotation among the
that this is different than different characters.
Character Spin, which
is the amount that each
character gets rotated per Hinting
frame.
Traditionally, Hinting is the process by which small variations in
character shapes are encoded into a typeface to create visually pleasing
relationships between characters. For instance, a ʻyʼ fits better next to an
ʻiʼ if both characters have been hinted for this relationship. Hinting also
facilitates accurate printing, but thatʼs not a motion graphics concern.

Using ASCII Presets Turn on Hinting to enable smoother motion in some cases, especially when
Here weʼve limited the characters are being rotated.
character set between the
ASCII values of 48 (the 0
character) and 57 (the 9 Vertical Writing
character). The result is
that we only get numbers, This will display your text going from top to bottom, instead of left to right.
0 through 9. The text is automatically centered along the center of the stream. Thereʼs
no way to change this, although any other alignment generally results in
difficult to read text and is not very useful.

Since most English fonts are not designed to be displayed this

way, turning this option on can produce serious problems with
readability. If youʼre concerned about this, try using a mono-
spaced font, all capitals, or a font designed for being read
vertically. Youʼll probably also need to adjust tracking to make
the text as readable as possible.

Preset Characters
In the Preset Characters section, there are checkboxes you can select to
automatically limit the characters that are generated. This gives you quick
and easy access to some of the most requested types of characters.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 18

 The Preset options vary a bit between filters.

- Capitals Only displays only capital letters.

- Numbers Only displays only numbers.
- Letters Only displays only letters.
- Binary Only displays only 0ʼs and 1ʼs.
- Hexadecimal Only refers to the Hexadecimal numbering system, which
Reach for Your Limits has 16 digits (0-F), instead of the 10 (0-9) that weʼre used to. When this
Take advantage of the is selected, 0-9 and A-F will be displayed.
Lowe and Upper Character - Full Byte doubles the size of each column, enabling you to create the
Limits by designing your look of computer code which is displayed in Bytes. It generally looks
own typeface. something like this: FF 0A 45 9C D3 or 8A 8B 5E 00 20
Create vector art and
put them into your font. Lower and Upper Character Limit
You can even save out
a logo at different sizes You can also customize the range of characters that are used when
and specify those as font random characters are generated. You do this by setting Lower and
characters. Then tell Text Upper Character Limit parameters.
Anarchy which characters
to recognize.

There are also many ʻclip

artʼ or dingbat fonts that
are pictures instead of
characters. You might wish These set the range of the characters (in decimal ASCII code) that the
to only use a few of the random characters will be selected from. The really nice benefit of this is
available images – do this, that you can select exactly the range of characters you want to use.
of course, by specifying
their ASCII position. It
opens up all sorts of This also lets you select special characters in the ʻupperʼ ASCII range.
interesting possibilities. Many fonts have symbols of all sorts in the ASCII slots above 127. You can
use the Lower and Upper limits to access these symbols.

For example, say youʼre using the boring old Arial font. Setting Lower to
48 and Higher to 57, would result in only numbers being produced in the
streams. Setting Lower to 65 and Higher to 90, would result in only capital
letters being shown.

For more about ASCII and what it means to you (and our plug-ins), turn
to Appendix A at the end of this manual. There is a complete table for a
basic ASCII typeface. This will give you a sample of what most fonts look
like in ASCII and the unusual icons you can find in the upper reaches.

Random Characters
IMPORTANT! This applies to Text Matrix, Text Grid, and Screen Text. Itʼs
an essential parameter, because if you donʼt enter any text into the dialog,
and donʼt turn on Random Characters, nothing will appear onscreen.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 19

 Aside from making these filters appear to work, what does this do?
Glad you asked. Random Characters fills your grid with characters that
are randomly selected from the range that you define with the Lower
Character Limit and the Upper Character Limit. This range is the ASCII
representation of characters in your font.

Randomness Seed
This sets the seed, or germination point, that all the Randomness values in
a particular filter use. If you change this seed, any part of the animation
that uses randomness will be changed. However, itʼll be changed in a
predictable way. If Randomness Seed is set to 50 and you change it 98,
the animation will change. If you then set it back to 50, the animation will
revert back to exactly what it was.

This can be very useful for creating different animations by changing,

literally, only one parameter. Depending on how many other parameters
are affected by randomness, you could have a substantially different
animation occur because of changing the seed.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 20

 Section III : Cool Text

Introduction
Cool Text is designed to allow the animation of text on a letter by letter
basis. You can animate Scale, Opacity, Blur, Color (creating gradients),
and Rotation. This allows you to create text effects that would be extremely
Cool Text versus difficult otherwise. Usually you would need to break text up into individual
Text Spiral layers to achieve many of these animations.
Cool Text and Text
Spirl have overlapping It is more of a full featured titling tool than any of the Elements of Anarchy:
functionality as ʻtext-on- Text filters were, with kerning, tracking, baseline adjustment, and different
pathʼ filters. But, the heart alignments.
of these plug-ins makes
each one distinct.
You create effects by first entering the text in and adjusting the parameters
Cool Text allows you to like Font Size or Kerning to get it looking the way you want. You then
set an effect in motion select and set up one or all of the five sets of effects controls. If just one
that spans the text much effect isnʼt what you want, effects can be combined together or you can
like a wave or ripple. have multiple instances of the same effect. This allows for all sorts of
By combining several of combinations and complex effects.
the available effects such
as Color and Blur and
changing their Positions Options Dialog
in tandem, you could
create a moving element, This is where you enter your text in. With Cool Text thereʼs no way to
with definable properties, generate random text (as some of you might expect if youʼre already
within words or lines of familiar with our text filters), so you NEED to enter something in here for
text. These effects can also
the filter to do anything.
be set to Affect All and to
fade up or down.
The five Font pop-ups and the Sequential Fonts checkbox are explained in
Here weʼve created a the Common Parameters section. Basically, Cool Text can change the font
Battlestar Galactic graphic of your text and this is where you set it up.
(fondly called ʻCylonʼ)
using Cool Text and the
period ʻ.ʼ character.

(cont. on next page)

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 21

 Covered in the Common Parameters Section
- Text Position
- Font Size and Font Size Randomness
- Font Size Rate of Change and Randomness
- Font Size Groups
- Font Rate of Change
Cool Text versus - Vertical Writing
Text Spiral - Color
(cont.) - Alt Color and Randomness
- Alt Color ROC and Randomness
In contrast to Cool Text, - Tracking
Spiral Text allows you to - Exponential Tracking
ʻblendʼ geometric and/or - ET Position Point
color properties over the
length of the specified
- Kerning (all Kerning parameters)
text. - Leading
- Length of Lines
By setting different - Baseline Shift
properties for Beginning - Alignment
and Ending params, each - Character Rotation and Randomness
character lying between
- Randomness Seed
the Beginning and End
takes on a unique value.
Subsequently animating
the Beginning and/or
Effect Parameters
Ending Params sets into a These are the heart and soul of Cool Text. Yes, just that dramatic. The
motion a wave or ripple of Effect parameters allow you to create most of your cool effects. By moving
the animated effects.
the Position point along the length of your text, you can create a variety
of interesting animations and effects.

You select the type of effect you want to use, then set a maximum amount,
set the length of time that each character will animate to the maximum
amount, and then animate the Position point across the characters you
want to affect.

You can combine these in any combination. You can have the same Effect
applied multiple times and stack and layer them. See the Using Multiple
Effects section for more info.

Now letʼs take a closer look at each parameter.

Type of Effect pop-up

There are five types of Effects: Scale, Rotation, Opacity, Blur, and Color.

IMPORTANT: The Amount parameters function and limits will vary

between effects. For example, Opacity only has a functional range of 0

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 22

 to 100. Conversely, Rotation can be –25,000 to 25,000. A big difference
and something to be very aware of. In the text below, each effect has its
Amount limits listed.

Effect: Scale
The text is scaled up from itʼs normal point size. The Amount parameter
sets the maximum scale amount. If this is set to 300% then the text will be
scaled up 3 times larger than normal.

Amount values between 0 and 99 will result in the characters being scaled
down. Negative values result in the character being flipped upside down
and inverted. Sort of like a backwards mirror reflection. If you actually
want a mirrored reflection, you can rotate the characters around the X
axis.
Whereʼs the Hide
Effect Button?
Effect: Rotate and Rotation Axis
There isnʼt an OFF button
to temporarily hide the This allows you to rotate the text around any axis. The Amount sets the
Cool Text Effects while maximum rotation and can either be negative (counter-clockwise) or
working on a composition. positive (clockwise).
Instead, simply switch to
None in the pop-up. You set the Rotation Axis to determine what axis the characters will rotate
around. If youʼre familiar with any basic 3D system, these axes should be
When youʼre ready to
see your Effect again,
pretty common knowledge.
choose that same option
you had turned off. Your Rotating around the X axis will give the effect of the characters falling
parameters will appear over or swinging like a hanging sign.
correctly.
Rotating around the Y axis will make it look like the characters are turning
away from you. As if they are turning to show you their side. Of course,
the letters arenʼt in 3D, so as they turn, they get flat and will eventually
disappear at 90 degrees.

Rotating around the Z axis is like spinning the characters around the face
of a clock. If you can imagine those spinning newspaper intros in old
movies, they would have been spinning around the Z axis.

Setting the Amount to more than 360 will result in the characters doing a full revolution.
You can set them up to do as many revolutions as youʼd like.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 23

 Effect: Opacity
This sets the opacity of the characters allowing them to fade in or out.

This Effect probably benefits from the ability to combine effects slightly
more than the others. Allowing you to combine opacities and have
different regions fade in/out.
Cool Columns
of Opacity The opacity of the letters defaults to 100. If you want the characters to
Instead of animating the start off at zero opacity and fade in youʼll need to set another Opacity
text itself, weʼve created Effect that will cover all the text and set it to zero. See the Instant Effect
an animated effect that Sidebar for how this works and how to set it up. Itʼs easy and only takes
runs through the text. a few seconds.
To make these energetic
lines, weʼve created a
The Amount range for Opacity is 0 to 100.
semi-transparent column
that moves back and forth
over text like a thin vertical
mask.

First, set the Effect to Type=

Opacity. Then adjust its
Width to 1 and Time to
1. This set the width of
the moving column to one
character, and ensured Effect: Blur
that the column will stay
The effect allows you to apply a Guassian blur on a letter by letter basis.
at a width of 1, instead
of spreading it across
The blur starts off at 0 and animates to whatever amount you set. By
additional characters. using multiple Blur Effects you can have letters become unblurred or have
sections of the text stay ʻin focusʼ by using two blurs on either side of the
The only keyframes text you want in focus.
necessary are for Position.
At 00:00, set Position to 1
to start the Opacity Effect
at the first text character
of your lines. Then set a
keyframe at the end of
your longest line. Finally,
pull back to an earlier
frame and lower the
Position. This moves the
one-character wide column
back and forth along your
rows of text.
By setting the Blur to a negative amount you can cause the ʻunblurʼ effect.
Read the online tutorial The values will add together, the negative number subtracting from the
ʻCool Opacityʼ for more positive. In the image above, the ʻlʼ and ʻaʼ are unblurred as a regular
about this technique.
blur travels across the words.
www.digitalanarchy.com

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 24

 Effect: Color
This allows you to animate the color of individual characters. This will
create a gradient across the text as the characters animate. The gradient
will blend between the main color and the Effect color or two Effect colors
if they overlap.

The main, default color is set by the Color parameter in the main setup
(see the Common Parameters section) and you set the Effect Color by
changing the color chip in the Effect section. You can animate the Effect
Color as you would any other Effect, but Amount has no function here.
The color is either on or itʼs off.

Scale Characters
One by One
If you want a string of
characters to gradually
scale up one by one, In the example above, the main color of the text is blue, and there are two
animate Position from 1 Color Effects applied to it, one a goldenrod color and the other a green
until the end character of color.
the text (15 in the Digital
Anarchy example to
RIGHT). Position and Width
Set Width to 1. With Allows you to select the characters that will be affected. Each character
Width set to 1, only one has a number assigned to it depending on where itʼs at in the string of
character will be affected text. The first character is 1, the second 2, and so on.
at a time. As the Position
moves across the text,
The Position lets you set the Effect for a specific character and the Width
the characters that have
already been passed over determines how many other characters will be affected at the same time.
continue to animate. This
is so even though the text The Position and Width parameters set a range. Unless a character falls
isnʼt directly being affected into this range, it will not have the Effect applied to it. By animating either
by the Effect range, which parameter, you affect characters over time.
is only 1 character wide.
Once a character is affected, it will continue to animate until it reaches
the Amount value, even if it falls out of the range. This is because the Time
parameter, not Position, sets how long it takes to reach the Amount.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 25

 If we wanted all the characters to scale up at the same time (using the
Digital Anarchy example above), we would set Position to 8 and Width to
15. The Effect range would then encompass all the letters so they all will
start and stop scaling at the same time.

Amount
What Amount does is highly dependant on what is chosen in the Type
Going Outside
of Effect pop-up. This is the maximum amount of whatever Effect is being
the Amount
applied. The character that is specified by the Position slider will receive
You can enter in –25000 this value for the Effect.
to 25000 for any of the
Effects, but the effects only
This has different limits depending on which Effect is select. For something
recognize numbers in the
range mentioned for each like Opacity, the range is 0 to 100. For Scale itʼs 0 to 25000. For Rotation
Effect. Anything outside itʼs –25000 to 25000. For Blur itʼs 0 to 25,000 and for color itʼs ignored.
of that range is clipped Color takes its value from the Effect Color color chip and doesnʼt use this
to the minimum value or parameter.
max value depending on
which end of the range it
falls out of. Time
For example, if Opacity This sets the length of time it takes for a character to go from itʼs normal
= 100, itʼs fully opaque. state to whatever Amount is set for the Effect.
You canʼt get any more
fully opaque, no matter For example, if the Scale Effect is applied with an Amount of 200, Time
how hard you try. If youʼre
sets the number of frames itʼll take to go from having no Scale applied
25,000% opaque, youʼre
not any more difficult to (just the regular font size) to having the full 200% Scale applied.
see through than if youʼre
at 100% opaque, so any If you set it 30 frames, assuming a 30 frame/sec comp, itʼll take one
value over 100 is clipped second to go from normal to scaled up 200%.
to 100.
As you move the Position point from one character to another, each
character will start to animate. The Time parameter doesnʼt kick in until
each character is affected. If a group of characters gets affected at the
same time, theyʼll all animate in unison. If theyʼre affected at different
times, the animation will be staggered… theyʼll start and FINISH the
animation at different times.

This also means that if you animate the Time parameter, as different
characters are affected, they can have different Times. The first character
may take 30 frames to animate, but the second one may take 10 frames,
so it may finish before the first one.

Time To Return To Original Value checkbox

Once a character has gone through itʼs animation from itʼs normal state to
the full Effect Amount you need to figure out what to do with it.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 26

 If you turn on the Donʼt Return to Original Position checkbox, then the
characters will stay at whatever the Effect has them set to. If theyʼre scaled
to 200% theyʼll stay that way, and never scale back down.

Donʼt Return to Original Position checkbox

Subtracting Effects: However, what if you want them to go back to their original state? If you
De-Blur want the characters to fade in and then fade back out, then youʼll need to
Effects can be added set a value for Time To Return To Original.
together, but they can
also be subtracted. This
allows you to create a Baseline For Effect
variety of complex effects,
where text has one effect
This only affects Scale and Rotate around the X or Z axes. It moves the
applied, then a second center point that the effect is rotating or scaling around. This can produce
effect that removes the first some very interesting animation.
effect from some of the
characters. Make sense? If youʼre familiar with the Anchor Point in AE, this is very similar. If you
want a layer to rotate around the upper left corner, you can move the
Letʼs use blur as an
Anchor Point from itʼs normal position in the center of the layer to the
example. First weʼll apply
a nice heavy blur to the upper left corner. When you change the Layer Rotation, lo and behold,
entire word. Take a look at the layer rotates around that corner.
the TOP word ʻAnarchyʼ.
Baseline works the same way. If you want all the characters to rotate
around their center point (say with Rotate Z axis) instead of around the
normal baseline (the bottom of the letters), you would adjust this upwards
slightly.

We can now come in and Affected Letters Only checkbox

apply a second blur thatʼs
If this is selected only characters that have the Effect applied to them will
set to a negative value.
The negative value causes
be rendered.
focus on the characters
itʼs applied to. If no blur The character will appear as soon as the Position parameter calls
has been applied already, itʼs number and the animation starts. Once the animation finishes itʼll
then a negative value has disappear again. If the Donʼt Return to Original Position checkbox is
no effect. selected, the character will stay in itʼs affected state and permanently
remain visible. If that is not selected, then the character will animate back
This negative blur is only
applied to the ʻrchʼ in the to itʼs original state and disappear once it gets there.
BOTTOM ʻAnarchyʼ. Itʼs
also applied over time
and moved across the
characters, so the ʻhʼ is
more un-blurred than the
yes no
ʻrʼ. This creates a de-blur
or focus effect. Just one
instance of how negative
values can be used to
create cool effects.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 27

 Using Multiple Effects
A really cool attribute of the Effects is that they can be used multiple times
and stacked on each other. Combine a Blur with a Color change. Or,
stack two Color changes together.

The Effects are applied sequentially, meaning that Effect 1 is applied first,
Effect 2 is applied second, and so on. To Scale all the layers down then
scale them back up, youʼd Scale them down with Effect 1, and Scale them
up with Effect 2

This is less important if youʼre just combining Effects like a Rotation and a
Blur that are going to happen at the same time. However, there can still
be small difference depending on the order of the Effects.

Using Expressions
If you are combining Effects that happen at the same time you can tie the
parameters together using Expressions. This can be particularly useful for
the Position parameter. Since you want all the Effects to happen in sync,
you can just link Effects 2 through 5 to Effect 1. Adjustments made to Effect
1 would then propagate to the other Effects, making changes easier.

Repeat the Same All parameters are usable with Expressions. This opens up the possibility
Effect for Effect of using other layers or filters to drive the Effects created with Cool Text.
You can create some Look for the sidebar explaining this.
interesting animations
by combining Cool Text
Effects. Eespecially if you Path Controls
use the same Effect.
One of the great things about Cool Text is that you can use a path to
For example, you can use control it. Create a mask on the layer that Cool Text is applied to and that
one Opacity Effect to set mask can be used to guide the text. Make a mask of a star or wave and
all your characters to a the streams will happily follow around the outline.
low opacity or invisible
and then use other Cool Text also supports animated paths, so you could animate the wave
Opacity Effects to make
and the streams will follow it along, undulating with the wave motion.
them visible. The other
Opacity Effects will see
the initial one and use the One thing to note is that the first point in the path doesnʼt determine where
character opacity that was the text on a path begins. That is defined by the Text Position parameter.
set by it. The text follows the path shape from the Text Position. See the Text Position
parameter in the Common Parameters section for more info.
You can do that with any
of the Effects, use multiple
Blur effects to create ʻin Path
focusʼ areas or areas with
This pop-up simply allows you to select which path you want to use. Since
more blur.
it recognizes any path, you can create a variety of paths and try them with
a given animation, or use the same animation to follow different shapes.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 28

 Orient Character to Path
This adjusts the rotation of characters to the angle of the path, keeping
each character perpendicular to the path.

Path Start/End Point

Know Where You Normally, the text will start out from the first point you draw on the path.
Start and End If this parameter is set to 0, that is in fact where the text starts out – right
Itʼs important to know at the first point (taking the Text Position parameter into consideration).
this information when
creating the path, since it However, there are many times when that default is not desirable. Or you
determines how your text may wish to animate the text along the path. This is where Path Start/End
is flowed. This is especially
Point comes in. It adjusts where the text starts and ends on a path. You can
true with closed paths.
make adjustments to account for not placing the first point at the correct
Paths, even closed paths location. Or, you can simply animate the text, and it will travel around the
like a circle, have a start path.
point, end point, and
direction. The start point is We used a dial to simulate a closed path. If you move the dial around in a
the first point you create. full revolution, the text will end up back where it started, at the first point
The end point is either
the last point in the path
of the path. With open paths, a full revolution will move all the text off the
(in open paths like a sine path, so it disappears.
wave), or itʼs the same
point as the starting point You can also move the text in the negative direction, making the text go
(if the path is closed). off the start point of the path. This behaves exactly the same as going past
the last point… the text continues in a straight line in the direction it was
A common rookie mistake
traveling when it when past the start point.
is to create a closed path,
and get the impression that
Text Spiral or Cool Text
places its text randomly,
Reverse Direction checkbox
because the text doesnʼt This causes the text to follow the path in the opposite direction. Usually a
travel as expected. path has a direction. It goes from the first point created to the last point.
Text will be flowed according to that, with the first character of the text by
the first point created.

Reverse Direction switches that, so that the first character appears by the
last point creating and flows towards the beginning of the path.

NOTE TO USERS OF AE ʻCOMPATIBLEʼ APPLICATIONS: Paths donʼt

work in anything but After Effects. Most of AE-compatible applications
donʼt support that part of the AE API.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 29

 Section IV : Font Changer

Introduction
Font Changer is a fairly simple plug, allowing you to take a string of text
and animate the font. You can select up to 5 different fonts and have the
text string change from one to the other either sequentially, as theyʼre
Illustrator and listed, or in random order.
Photoshop Paths
Did you know that you The Font Changer controls are available in other filters as well, such as
can paste paths from Cool Text and Text Hacker.
Photoshop and Illustrator
directly into After Effects?
You can paste a path into Options Dialog
a layer or to a Position
parameter. This is where you enter in your text and set the fonts that you want to use.
As you would probably expect, the 5 font pop-ups are where you select
To do either, select all the various fonts you want to use.
the points on your path
in either Photoshop or
Illustrator, then switch over
to After Effects and paste.

If you select a layer, the

path gets applied as a
mask shape in the layer
you paste to. You can then
use the path to control
Cool Text or Text Spiral.

If you select a Position

parameter in the Timeline,
like Text Position, the
path gets pasted into the
Timeline as keyframes for
that parameter. its a fast Covered in the Common Parameters Section
way to animate complex
motion. - Text Position
- Font Size and Font Size Randomness
- Font Size Rate of Change
- Font Size Groups
- Font Rate of Change (see additional info below)
- Color
- Alt Color and Randomness
Pasting paths is a great - Alt Color ROC and Randomness
way to use sophisticated - Tracking
shapes that may exist in
- Exponential Tracking
the other applications,
or to create paths with - ET Position Point
Illustratorʼs more powerful - Kerning (all parameters)
and complex mask tools. - Leading

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 30

 - Length of Lines
- Baseline Shift
- Alignment
- Character Rotation and Randomness
- Hinting
- Randomness Seed

Sequential Fonts checkbox

The checkbox Sequential Fonts determines whether the text string changes
into these fonts sequentially, going from Font 1 to Font 2 to Font 3, etc. or
if they just change randomly. If the checkbox is selected the fonts change
sequentially, if not, they change randomly.

The text field is where you enter the text you want displayed. If you have
a paragraph of text, you donʼt need to worry about entering in carriage
returns for each new line. There are parameters to let you set the length of
lines, leading, kerning, and other basic word processing features.

Shifting Text
One issue that youʼll run
into with FROC is that most
fonts are sized differently
and have different built Font Rate of Change
in Kerning. This results in
the text shifting around a This is the key parameter for Font Changer, so weʼll delve a little deeper
bit as the font changes. than we did in the Common Parameters section. Rate of Change sets the
Thereʼs really not much
speed at which the fonts change over. Itʼs set in frames, so at a value of
you can do about that.
15, the font will change every 15 frames.
One workaround is to
animate the tracking to
coincide with each font
change. Have the tracking
set up to compensate
for different spacing,
basically. This will allow
you to keep the text string
the same length, but itʼs a
bit of work. Depending on whether you have the ʻSequential Fontsʼ checkbox selected
in the Options Dialog, a font will either change into the one following it, or
the plug-in will randomly select a font to change into from the list youʼve
selected.

You can keyframe FROC, but itʼs a little tricky. Any change in the value of
FROC will not affect the font currently visible. Once a font is on the screen,
it will last for however long FROC is set at the moment it appears.

If a font changes while Font Rate Of Change is set to 10, it will last for 10

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 31

 frames. If you animate the FROC to 5 immediately after it changes, it will
still last for 10 frames. All subsequent font changes will last for 5 frames
though.

Randomize Font checkbox

Monospaced Fonts If you turn on the Randomize Font checkbox, then Font Changer will
cycle through the fonts that you have loaded into the pop-up boxes. This
When using some of the checkbox blows away any choices in Font Selector parameter [below].
filters, monospaced fonts
animate really well. For
Text Hacker, for instance,
the transform between
characters can appear
more seamless.

Monospaced fonts are

fonts where each letter
Font Selector
takes up the same amount This parameter is the way you specify which font you want to work with.
of space. Most fonts are The numbers correspond to the order of the Font pop-ups.
NOT monospaced. If you
look at an ʻiʼ and an ʻoʼ Keyframing Font Selector is the way to control the speed with which the
in most fonts, the ʻoʼ takes fonts change. This works in tamdem with other parameters like Font Rate
up much more space. You of Change and Font ROC Randomness.
can see the difference in
the image below. At TOP,
the ʻiʼ of the regular font
takes up far less space
than the ʻdʼ. At BOTTOM,
the monospaced fontʼs
ʻiʼ takes up just as much
space as the capital ʻWʼ.

A 7-letter word in a non-

monospaced font will
take up varying amounts
of spaced based on the
letters that are in the
word. Whereas, with a
monospaced font, a seven
letter word always takes
up the same amount of
room.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 32

 Section V : Text Hacker

Introduction
Text Hacker is designed to convert one string of text into another or have
a string of text appear out of random characters.

It only deals with single lines, no paragraphs in this one. You can specify
lines of text that will be generated randomly or changed, set up the order
that theyʼll change in, how long itʼll take to change, and let it do the
animation.

Options Dialog (Read This!!)

The important part about Text Hacker is that itʼs all set up with carriage
returns. Yes, a simple click of the return key sets one target from the other.
After youʼve selected your font or fonts, enter your text into the text
field.

The first line in the text field is referred to as the Source. Depending on
what display option youʼve chosen itʼs usually the first line to appear. All
subsequent lines are called targets, because no matter what, they were
formed from some previous word or set of characters.

Each ʻnew lineʼ generates a new target. So each time you hit the <Enter>
key, a new target is created. Text Hacker will display the first line, look
and see if thereʼs a second line, then change into that. Thereʼs no way to
have a multi-line target.

Sources and Targets are explained in more detail in the Source vs. Target
section below.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 33

 Covered in the Common Parameters Section
- Text Position
- Font Size and Font Size Randomness
- Font Size Rate of Change and Randomness
- Font Size Groups
Many Targets, Fonts - Color
Text Hacker doesnʼt have - Alt Color and Randomness
the ability to use multiple - Alt Color ROC and Randomness
fonts for multiple targets - Tracking
[see Common Parameters, - Vertical Writing
Multiple Fonts]. However, - Preset Characters
you can work around this
- Lower/Upper Character Limit
issue if you have random
characters between lines.

Select different fonts for

Change Style pop-up
the Source/Target and for This has three options and sets how the text will be displayed.
the Random character. The
trick here is to find a frame
Random => Target (R>T): This results in random characters forming into
where thereʼs all Random
characters. When you find each target. If there are multiple Targets, then random characters are
this, split the layer. Once created before forming each new one.
you split the layer, change
the font for the newly
created layer to match the
Random font.

Source => Target (S>T): This causes the first inputted line to form into the
second line. If there are multiple Targets, then each line forms into the
Changing the Source/
subsequent one.
Target font wonʼt affect
the random characters.
So, the random characters
in both layers will be
the same, making your
transition unnoticeable.
Once the second layer
changes into the target,
voila! A new and different
font from the Font in the
original layer.
Source => Random => Target (S > R > T): This starts off with the first
inputted line, with changes into random characters, which then changes
into the second line. If there are multiple Targets, then there are random
characters between each one.

S>R>T differs from R>T in two ways. First, obviously, S>R>T starts from a
fully formed line. Second, each Target slowly decomposes into random
letters before starting to form the next line. In R>T, after one target is
finished it snaps to all random characters, more like a sawtooth wave.
S>R>T is more like a sine wave.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 34

 Source vs. Target
Excess Character
If you transition two words The ʻSourceʼ is simply the first line you have entered. Every line that follows
of different lengths, youʼre it is referred to as a Target, although, Targets can become the equivalent
going to have extra of Sources under the S>R>T display method. For example:
characters left over. Text
Hacker gives you a few Line Text Source/Target for S>T and S>R>T
ways of dealing with this.
1 Digital Anarchy Source of Line 2
You can make the words
disappear immediately, 2 After Effects Target of Line 1, Source of Line 3
or fade off character by 3 Text Anarchy Target of Line 2
character, or fade off all
at once.
For R>T, line 1 is the first Target. Since R>T always reverts to Random
1. To have the words characters after showing the Target, every line is a Target. Line 2 is usually
disappear immediately, a Target, but since it turns into Line 3 you can call it the Source as well.
just turn on the Fade In/
Out EC checkbox. Since Basically Text Hacker just goes down the list and changes one string into
the Fade Time is set to
another. Sometimes it puts random characters inbetween, sometimes not.
0, each character will
disappear one by one.

2. If you set Fade Time to

Random Characters
some other frame value, Random characters are exactly that… characters generated from the
the characters will fade normal ascii range resulting in 0-9, punctuation, lowercase, and uppercase
off one by one. Set it to 8,
each character will take 8
letters. This may vary somewhat depending on the font youʼre using.
frames to fade away.

3. If you select the Fade

Time Between Targets
Together box, then all the This determines how long it takes for a change to take place. Whether
characters will disappear
itʼs going from Random characters to a Target, a Source to a Target,
together. Again, how fast
or slow they disappear is
or a Target back to Random characters, this controls the length of time.
set by Fade Time. Itʼs set in frames, so if you set it to 60, itʼll take 60 frames to make the
transition.

If youʼre using Source > Random > Target and Time Between Targets is
set to 60, itʼll take 120 frames to complete the animation. This is because
it takes 60 frames to go from the Source to the Random characters, and
another 60 frames to go from random characters to the Target.

Of course, this affects the overall time. You need to calculate how many
targets you have and multiply it by the TBT to determine how long itʼll take
to finish the animation. If you have random characters appearing, they
could as targets.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 35

 If you have 30 lines that you want to change over the course of a minute,
you can set TBT to be 60 frames and be ok. If you have Random characters
appearing between the normal targets then youʼd have to use 30 frames
or less. Otherwise, the normal targets and the Random targets wonʼt fit
into one minute.

One Line At A Time

TypeOn, Text Hacker,
and Screen Text all have
ways of creating the effect
of one line overwriting
another. Which plug-in
youʼll use depends on Lead Time
exactly how you want the
This causes a delay BEFORE any changes occur. This is set in frames. If
effect to look.
you set it to 15, there will be a delay of 15 frames before characters start
Text Hacker is probably the changing. If Random characters are first displayed, they will generate
easiest. Enter in multiple randomly for 15 frames, then start changing into the Target.
lines of text, select Source
=> Target, turn on the This works very similar to Hold Time. Depending on the display style
Fade In/Out EC checkbox
selected they may combine together.
and thatʼs it. Lines will
literally overwrite each
other as they appear. The Lead Time is particularly useful for S>T or S>R>T where you want the
advantage to this method Source to be displayed for a few moments so itʼs readable.
is that the current line stays
on the screen while the
new line overwrites it.

Hold Time
This causes a delay AFTER a target has been changed into. This is set in
frames. If you set it to 20, once a change has occurred, it will hold that for
20 frames. This is useful, if you want to change into a target and not have
it instantly start reverting back to random characters. This is particularly
a problem with R>T, as the Target will instantly revert to all random
TypeOn, in contrast,
requires you to animate
characters the frame after it finishes changing.
the Completion parameter
from 0 to 100, and turn on
the Overwrite checkbox.
Rate of Change
In this case, once a line This sets how frequently the Random Characters change. At a setting of 1,
has been written itʼs
characters will change every frame. At a setting of 5 theyʼll change every
erased before a new line
can take itʼs place.
5 frames.

(cont. next page sidebar) Setting this to 1 will most likely give you a result that looks too chaotic on
video. Youʼll get buzzing due to the rapidly changing characters. Setting
this to 4 or 5 and setting ROC Randomness to 50%, usually works pretty
well.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 36

 Use ROC Randomness to vary how frequently each character changes.
Otherwise, they all change at once, which produces a very rhythmic,
mechanical look. This is usually not desirable.

Fade In/Out Extra Characters checkbox

This causes Extra Characters to adhere to the Fade Time parameter.
One Line At A Time
Otherwise, characters that are left over from a change will just remain
(cont.) on the screen. If you change from Anarchy to Bob, the characters ʻrchyʼ
So text in TypeOn doesnʼt
will be left over and appended on to Bob. Creating Bobrchy. A highly
actually get overwritten, undesirable state where all the Bobs in the world take to the streets and
as with Text Hacker. This riot. Donʼt let it happen to your town.
may or may not be an
advantage. Of course,
TypeOn also gives you Fade Time
additional visual options,
like a cursor.
Sets the amount of time in frames that the extra characters will fade out
or in.

Fade Together checkbox

This causes all extra characters to fade in or out together. Otherwise, each
character will fade out/in over the time allotted by Fade Time. However,
Finally, Screen Text can each character will wait for the character before it to fade, before it
also create overwriting begins its fade. With this checked all characters fade at once.
lines. Set Scroll Speed to
0. Adjust the Frequency of
Overwrite, which sets how Lock EC ROC to ROC checkbox
often a new line will be
displayed. And adjust the If the extra characters donʼt fade, and they become random characters,
Display Speed parameter, this sets that their rate of change to match that of the regular ROC. If this
which sets how fast the is not selected, the extra characters will have their own ROC, determined
character type themselves by the Extra Characters ROC parameter.
onscreen.

The advantage of using Extra Characters ROC

Screen Text is that it gives
you a bit more control This determines the rate of change of any extra characters that turn into
over how fast lines appear random characters.
or get typed on.

Reverse When Completed checkbox

Once the filter has gone through all possible lines of text, instead of just
stopping, it will reverse direction and go back through the lines of text.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 37

 Section VI : Text Spiral

Read This First!

NOTE TO USERS OF AE ʻCOMPATIBLEʼ APPLICATIONS: Paths donʼt work
in anything but After Effects. Most of AE-compatible applications donʼt
support that part of the AE API. Since Text Spiral is completely based on
paths, this filter will not work in any applications other than After Effects.

Introduction
Text Spiral allows you to set up text on a path. This can be done with
well neigh a hundred plug-ins, so what makes Text Spiral different? Well,
it allows you to set the attributes at different ends of the path to differing
values. Attributes are the design options you normally associate with text,
like Font Size, Color, and Rotation.

Create text that trails off into space, text going down a drain, 3D effects,
text disappearing into space, and much more.

Options Dialog
This is where you enter in your text and set the fonts that you want to use.
You can select up to 5 fonts. Like Font Changer you can have the fonts
animate over time, changing from one to the other.

Covered in the Common Parameters Section

- Font Size and Font Size Randomness
- Color
- Alt Color and Randomness
- Alt Color ROC and Randomness

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 38

 - Tracking
- Leading
- Length of Lines
- Baseline Shift
- Alignment
- Character Rotation and Randomness

Different from Sequential Fonts

the Others
The checkbox Sequential Fonts determines whether the text string changes
Unlike the other filters into these fonts sequentially, going from Font 1 to Font 2 to Font 3, etc. or
in Text Anarchy, Text if they just change randomly. If the checkbox is selected the fonts change
Spiral has two sets of
sequentially, if not, they change randomly.
attributes for the text: the
Beginning Parameters and
Ending Parameters. You The text field is where you enter the text you want displayed. If you
make changes to one or have a paragraph of text, you donʼt need to worry about entering in
the other and the filter carriage returns for each new line. There are now parameters to let you
interpolates the inbetween set the length of lines, leading, kerning, and other basic word processing
values.
features.
For example, if you
want the Font Size to The ʻLoadʼ button allows you to load a text file in instead of typing the
get smaller as it goes desired text in.
further along the path,
change the Font Size in
the Beginning Parameters Global Parameters
to a larger value than the
Ending Parameters. Thereʼs a few parameters that act globally and affect what both the
beginning and end parameters do. (More info about all these parameters
Otherwise, the parameters are in the Common Parameters section.)
should behave exactly as
you would expect from
the other Text Anarchy Text Position
filters. The only difference
with Text Spiral is that the This sets where the path begins. The text will originate from here and since
parameters can change you canʼt have two starting points on a path, this parameter determines
values from one end of the where all the text will start from.
path to the other.
The position of the rest of the text will be determined by the path, but the
starting point for all text will be wherever this is located.

Font Size Rate Of Change and FS ROC Randomness

If the Font Size parameter has Randomness applied to it, the font size of
each character will vary. Not only will each character have a different font
size, but that font size will change during the course of the animation.

Font Size Rate Of Change determines how quickly the characters change
their font size. This is set in frames, so at 5, the characters will change their
size every 5 frames.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 39

 This parameter determines the Rate of Change for both beginning and
ending Font Size Randomness parameters. Having different Rates of
Change for the beginning and end produced unpredictable results in Text
Spiral, so we thought it best to just make it a global parameter.

Wrapped Text
One problem with Text
Spiral is that itʼs difficult
to make text disappear
off the end of a path. The
solution lies in Wrap Text.

Choose to Wrap Text, and Begin = End

the text disappears off the
edge, but then it reappears This causes the Ending parameters to take on the values of the Beginning
at the beginning of the parameters. There would be no difference between the end of the path
path. If you donʼt Wrap and beginning of it.
Text, the text continues in
a straight line off in the
direction of the last point Path Controls
on the path.
The path controls are similar to what youʼll find in the other filters.
Since you can precisely However there are a few differences.
control where the text
appears on the path, you
can have a very long path Wrap Text
and only use a small part
of it. Control the position Text can be animated along a path in Text Spiral. This is great, but creates
with the Start/End Point a problem. What happens when the text goes off the edge of the path?
parameter. With Text Spiral there are two options.

The first, described in the Start/End Point section, sends the text in a
straight line off the path. The second, Wrap Text causes the text to wrap
around to the other end of the path. This creates sort of an infinite loop
(in the sense it never ends) as long as you keep animate the Start/End
In the image below, a point.
portion of the path
extends outside the frame
of the comp. When the text
wraps, itʼll wrap to this off-
screen portion of the path,
invisibly falling off the
path thatʼs onscreen.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 40

 Preset Path
If you select one of the paths from this pop-up then anything selected
in the Path pop-up is ignored. This provides a quick and easy way of
selecting some common path shapes. They work like normal paths, except
the size can be adjusted with the Path Size parameter, which provides an
additional way of animating within Text Spiral.

When to Use Text

Spiralʼs Begin = End
Other than a few cases,
like making the text
wrap around a path, we
generally recommended
that you use Cool Text
to animate if there isnʼt
going to be a change in
attributes from start to
finish of the text line.
The preset paths also behave differently than regular paths.
Cool Text has more robust
controls for the text and
can do most of what Text
Spiral can do when the
The Wave, Double Wave, and Square Wave have a particularly useful
characters all have the attribute. They never end. So unlike other open paths, as you animate the
same attributes. Start/End Point your text makes like a bunny and keeps going and going
and going in a wave.

The Spiral and Square Spiral shapes bounce when you hit the center.
Handle Uniquely Meaning if you animate the text down into the center, it doubles back on
Text Spiralʼs unique
itself. Normally, with an open path like that, the text will either go off in
Beginning and End setup the direction of the last point on the path (Wrap Text Off) or wrap around
does occasionally create to the beginning of the path (Wrap Text On).
some odd, potentially
unwanted effects.
Path Size
Font Size, for example,
will change the spacing Path Size only works for the preset paths. It allows you to scale the
between characters. So if paths up or down, making adjustments easy. This makes for some cool
one end of the path has a animations.
smaller font size, thereʼs
going to be more space
between each letter. You Path Start/End Point
can adjust this discrepancy
by lowering the Tracking Normally, the text will start out from the first point you draw on the path.
value. If this parameter is set to 0, that is in fact where the text starts out – right
at the first point (taking the Text Position parameter into consideration).
See the sidebar Know
Where You Start and End However, there are many times when that default is not desirable. Or you
for more info about paths.
may wish to animate the text along the path. This is where Path Start/End
Point comes in. It adjusts where the text starts and ends on a path. You can

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 41

 make adjustments to account for not placing the first point at the correct
location. Or, you can simply animate the text, and it will travel around the
path.

We used a dial to simulate a closed path. If you move the dial around in a
full revolution, the text will end up back where it started, at the first point
of the path. With open paths, a full revolution will move all the text off the
path, so it disappears.
Wrap Text with
Start/End Points You can also move the text in the negative direction, making the text go
If Wrap Text is turned on off the start point of the path. This behaves exactly the same as going past
when you animate the the last point… the text continues in a straight line in the direction it was
Start/End Points, your text
traveling when it when past the start point.
will wrap back around to
the front. Once the text
goes past the last point of Character Perpindicular to Path
the path, it either:
- goes straight into the This adjusts the rotation of characters to the angle of the path, keeping
direction of the last point each character perpendicular to the path.
- returns to the beginning
of the path.
Reverse Direction checkbox
Whatever direction the This causes the text to follow the path in the opposite direction. Usually a
text is aimed in when it
gets to the last point is the
path has a direction. It goes from the first point created to the last point.
direction it will continue Text will be flowed according to that, with the first character of the text by
to go. That is, if you keep the first point created.
animating the Start/End
Point and donʼt wrap the Reverse Direction switches that, so that the first character appears by the
text. last point creating and flows towards the beginning of the path.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 42

 Section VII : TypeOn

Introduction
TypeOn is a filter designed to produce the effect of a typewriter or
someone typing on a computer. This makes it similar to Screen Text, with
the key difference that Screen Text is designed to produce random text or
text that looks like itʼs being outputted by a computer. TypeOn is more like
something youʼd see typed in by a human with more control over the look
of the text, such as kerning.

IMPORTANT: The main parameter in TypeOn is the Completion parameter.

By animating this your text will be typed onto the screen.

Options Dialog
This is where you enter in the text you want displayed. Nothing fancy
about this one. Just enter it in and animate the Completion parameters
and youʼre good to go.

Covered in the Common Parameters Section

- Font Size and Font Size Randomness
- Text Position
- Alignment
- Tracking
- Leading
- Kerning
- Randomness Seed

Color, Alt Color, and Frequency of Alt Color

Color, as you might have guessed, sets the color of the text.

Alternative Color and Frequency of Alternative Color allow you to set an

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 43

 alternative color, and determine how often it appears. The color is then
randomly applied to characters that are produced as the text is typed
on. The higher the frequency, the more characters will appear with the
alternative color. If you set Freq. of RC to 100%, then all characters will
be the color specified in Alternative Color.

This also sets the background colors that appear if the text is inverted. See
the Inverted parameter description for more info.
Type On versus
Screen Text
Basically, TypeOn is used Overwrite
when trying to mimic If you have multiple lines of text, as one line gets completed, the next line
a human, Screen Text
will overwrite it. Usually the text will just scroll up to make room for the
when youʼre mimicing a
computer. new line. If this is turned on, the first line disappears, as the next line starts
to appear.
Type On gives you a high
degree of control over how
and when text appears Completion and Completion Randomness
on screen. Chiefly, the
Completion param can be
This is how you animated the text. Itʼs the most important part of the filter.
keyframed and the speed As you animate this from 0 to 100%, the characters type themselves on.
curves manipulated with It doesnʼt make any difference how much text there is, 100% will always
high detail. This makes it result in all of it being typed on. Obviously, if you have more text, it will
possible to easily mimic appear to type on faster than shorter amounts if you animate this over the
the uneven typing rate of same time period.
someone using a keyboard
by simply setting keyframes
at uneven intervals, with Completion Randomness produces a somewhat odd effect. It causes the
Completion values that do completion percentage to jump around causing the text to jump on and
not interpolate linearly. off the screen. This can be useful if you want a random, chaotic animation
Additional params such with text typing itself on and off. Itʼs not super useful for normal situations,
as Cursor and Blink Speed but it can produce a neat effect.
serve to further reinforce
the effect.
Type-On
Screen Text is better suited
to generating random text This aligns the rows of text. It can either be Normal, Left, or Centered.
streams and controlling
when they appear by - Normal, or right aligned, results in a similar effect to typing on a
manipulating the Rate of
computer. Your cursor moves forward as you type.
Change param. By adding
Random Characters, you
- To make it behave like a typewriter, select Left. On a typewriter, the
can quickly generate cursor (place the keys hit) stays in the same place. The text (on a piece of
grids of text that mimic paper) moves as it gets out of the way for the next letter to be placed.
ʻdataʼ being spit out by a - Random just has the text appearing randomly as you increase the
computer. percentage.
Once the Completion percentage is set to 100%, all the characters will
be on screen.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 44

 Down
Usually, if you have multiple lines, a new line will push the old line itʼs
replacing up the screen. This is similar to what youʼd see if you were
typing in commands at the bottom of a shell window. As you type one line
in, all the lines above it are shifted up one to make room to display the
new line or results from the command.

Typewriters versus This isnʼt very useful if you want to simulate someone typing at the top of
Computers the shell window. In this case, select Down and new lines will be created
Thereʼs an important underneath old ones, and the old ones will remain where theyʼre at.
difference between the
way text appears when
typing on a computer vs. Cursor
typing on a typewriter. Creates a unix style cursor in front of your text. There are four options:
On a computer the
characters get added from - Leading Square: Similar to what you .nd in Irix. Positions a block in front
left to right. As you type of the text being typed on.
the cursor moves to the - Inverted Square: Puts the block over the last character typed on and
right across the screen. inverts that one character.
When you get to a new - Leading Line: An underline is placed in front of the last character.
line, the cursor jumps back
- Underline: Positions the underline beneath the last character typed.
to the left margin.

On a typewriter, however,
your cursor, which is
Cursor Blink Speed
the spot where the keys As you might imagine, this sets how fast the cursor blinks. Itʼs set in frames,
hit the page (anyone so if itʼs set to 1, then the cursor will be on for 1frame, and off for 1 frame.
remember?!), does not
move. Itʼs locked in place
If itʼs set to 10, itʼll be on for 10 frames and off for 10 frames.
and the paper moves
to the left as you type,
propelled by the roller
Invert Text
itʼs on. If youʼve been around computers for awhile, youʼll recognize this effect.
Creates a block around each character and the character is inverted
This results in your text
moving from right to left as
within the block. Very old school computer look. Very useful when you
the paper roll carries it to want to give the text the look of importance. Anything that says ʻDanger!ʼ
the left. should always be inverted. Iʼm sorry, I didnʼt make the rule. Itʼs just the
way it is.
So, if youʼre trying to
emulate a typewriter,
youʼll want to set the Text Blink Speed
ʻTypeOnʼ parameter to
ʻLeftyʼ. This will keep the Well, if Inverted Text wasnʼt enough, nothing says Danger! like blinking,
cursor stationary and inverted text. This sets the speed of blinking text. Itʼs in frames, so similar
move the text to the left to the Cursor Blink Speed, if itʼs set to 5 frames, the text will be on for 5
as you would see on frames and off for 5 frames. Among itʼs many features, Blinking Text has
one of those old skool, been known to send small children into epileptic fits. This is generally to
mechanical things.
be avoided, so please restrain yourself from excessive use of this feature.
This has been a public service announcement.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 45

 Section VIII : Text Matrix

Introduction
At a very basic level, this plug-in was designed to create ʻmatrix-esqeʼ
effects, with text raining down in streams. Our example below is exactly
that. No keyframes, only one layer. Just create a solid, apply the plug-in,
and make a few parameter tweaks.

You can certainly get some interesting effects beyond the defaults just by
playing with a few sliders. But thereʼs a lot more to Text Matrix, including
is its ability to use paths to control the streams and characters.

Options Dialog
This is where you tell Text Matrix what font to use and where you set up
specific text to be used. In either case, you can generate words randomly,
or you can tell the filter to read words or lines sequentially.

Covered in the Common Parameters Section

- Characters
- Random Characters
- Font Size and Font Size Randomness
- Rate of Change and ROC Randomness
- Use Alternative Characters checkbox
- Lower Alt Character
- Higher Alt Character
- Randomness Seed

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 46

 Characters Section
If you choose not to enter any text manually, you can have Text Matrix
just generate random text. IMPORTANT: Youʼll need to check the Random
Characters checkbox in order to generate text characters.

You can also specify which characters will be displayed, by adjusting the
Alternative character settings.

Character Spin
Character Spin works a bit differently. The value of Character Spin is the
amount that each character gets rotated each frame. You donʼt need to
set any keyframes, just set a value, say 3, and hit render. In this case, each
character would rotate 3 degrees each frame.

Taking the Rotation example of 180 degress, you could certainly do that
with Character Spin. Just divide 180 degrees by the number of frames you
want it to occur over. If we wanted it to occur over 60 frames, easy! 180/
60 = 3. Just set a hold keyframe at 3, and 60 frames later, set another
keyframe for zero.

What if we want to have it occur over 70 frames? Just set it to: 180/70 =
2.5714285714285714285714285714286.

Ack! Er… just use Character Rotation. Much easier, unless you just like
doing lots of math, in which case, please be our guest and use Character
Spin. :)

Color and Leading Character Color

Text Color is the color of the characters. Nothing complex there.

Leading Character Color is a bit more interesting, but equally simple. It

allows you to specify a different color for the first character in a stream.
The goal here is to make the streams a bit more interesting and to mix up
the colors a bit.

Color Blending
This can also be used with Color Blending to gradually fade the leading
color into the normal Text Color, all the way up the stream. Be default, itʼs
set to 0, which is what causes only the first character to be affected.

Of course you can use other filters or layers to influence the text colors,
but this allows you to add some variety within the plug itself.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 47

 Streams Section
Streams are simply the lines of characters which have their own attributes,
such as opacity, length, horizontal or vertical, speed, etc. Streams allow
you to group characters together creating all sorts of interesting effects,
from the good olʼ Matrix effect to Slot Machine Wheels. There are also a
number of parameters here controlling the positioning of the streams.

Spin and Rotation

Center of Streams and Center Randomness
The streams at LEFT have
no spin setting, but have This is a bit of a misnomer. It should really be called the Origination Point.
the rotation set to 90 It defines the upper, left starting point of the streams. As you add more
degrees. streams they extend to the right edge of the screen from this point.
The streams on the RIGHT
have no rotation, but have Center Randomness varies the origination point of each stream.
a spin setting of 4 degrees.
Notice that each character
is rotating seperately. Number of Streams
This is one of those parameters that itʼs tough to do anything but state the
obvious. So…this allows you to set the number of streams that make up
the matrix of text.

The streams, by default, fall vertically and are spaced out horizontally.
So if you set Number of Streams to 10, youʼll have 10 slots spaced out
(courtesy of the Space Between Characters parameter, which will be
explained later) across the screen that streams can fall in.

There are ways to get the streams to break out of their grooves, which
weʼll discuss that a bit later. For the moment, the streams are nicely
behaved, gettinʼ their groove on, and staying in it. Hmm… well, guess we
did go a bit beyond stating the obvious. Who knew?

Length of Stream and LoS Randomness

Alrighty, now weʼre getting into the heart of of the plug-in. Length of
Stream (LoS) defines the number of characters that the stream will have in
it. The higher the value the longer the stream.

The characters get revealed over time. New characters appear as old
ones move out of the way. So, the higher the Speed setting, the faster the
stream will reach its maximum length. Of course, itʼll move off the screen
faster as well.

LoS plays a large part in how your final animation looks. Very long streams
will end up just being columns of characters on the screen. If you donʼt
want this effect, then keep the value relatively low. This will give you lots
of variation, particularly if Time Between Streams is set to a low value.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 48

 If you want to adjust the starting position of your streams, check out the
Phase parameter, described below.

Randomness, like usual, varies the LoS of each stream on a stream by

stream basis. [Check the Common Parameters section for more info on
Randomness.] This is actually fairly important, as this in combination with
Speed Randomness, and Time Between Streams Randomness will give you
variety in the look and positioning of the streams.
Smoothly Down
Stream, er, Screen Speed and Speed Randomness
Characters in streams will
Speed, obviously, controls how fast the streams move. If you set this to 0,
usually move smoothly
down the screen. This the streams donʼt budge. Actually, if Speed is set to 0, you get a bunch of
makes everything feel one-character streams.
very random, a bit like
flowing water. The streams usually require that one character move out of the way before
another character is displayed. If the initial character doesnʼt move, the
If you donʼt want this kind
second character has no place to go. So the second character just sits at
of smooth randomness,
check out the Snap To home waiting for the casting call. Once the initial character gets a movinʼ
Grid checkbox. This will and makes some room on the stage, the second character makes an
force all characters into appearance.
appearing in a predefined
ʻmatrixʼ. Much like a Whatever you set Speed to is how many pixels the streams, and/or
digital clock screen or old characters in the stream, will move per frame. This is where Speed
computer terminal.
Randomness comes in. With speed randomness set to zero, the streams
Try setting a value of 1. all just move down the screen in one big block oʼ text. Which you may
This will give you streams want. Or you may not.
of 1 character, which, well,
isnʼt really a stream. Youʼll Speed is probably the most essential parameter to Text Matrix. You have
simply end up with lots of to have something set here, or else, itʼs a pretty unexciting plug-in.
single characters falling
from the sky. However itʼs
a pretty neat effect. Time Between Streams
This determines how long (in frames) TM waits before producing a new
stream, once an old stream has reached itʼs maximum length. If this is
set to 30, then 30 frames after a stream has reached itʼs max length, a
new stream will be produced, regardless of whether the old stream has
disappeared off the screen. This is what determines if you can have more
than one stream in a given ʻgrooveʼ.

You may want text raining down on the screen like, well, like rain. Rain
is pretty random, so in this case youʼd want to crank randomness up to
100%. Now youʼve got streams beginning and ending all over the place.
Again, using this with Length Randomness creates the variation needed to
really make the streams seem random.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 49

 Direction of Streams and Direction Randomness
This controls the direction of the streams. You can have them going at an
angle, going horizontal (set it to 90 degrees), going up, whatever.

As you rotate the streams, theyʼll rotate around the Center of Streams
point as if it were the upper left corner (which it is). This produces a hard
edge where the streams get created. To remove this simply drag the Center
Outta That Groove point of the edge of the layer, until the edge isnʼt visible any more.
Notice that the TOP set of
streams are lined up with Direction Randomness has one quirk. Each stream is rotated randomly,
the BOTTOM streams. however, itʼs rotated around itʼs starting point. So instead of having all
Usually, streams are stuck the streams go out from a central position, the go out randomly from what
in a groove. They can
appears to be a line, basically the edge that occurs when you rotate
catch up to streams that
came before them, but
them.
they donʼt usually shift to
a different slot. You can solve this problem (assuming you consider it a problem) a couple
ways.
Adding Randomness to
stream values will add One: set the number of streams really low, say 4, so theyʼre all at about
variety to your streams.
the same origination point, and set Time Between Streams really low, like
10, so you have a LOT of streams being created.

Two (and probably the better way): Set Space Between Streams to a
negative value, so that all the streams are on top of each other. This gives
them all the same origination point and when you move the Direction
Randomness slider from 0 to 100, all the streams spread out like a
flower.

Snap To Grid Checkbox

Snap to Grid, as mentioned earlier, causes the characters to lock to a
matrix, which is defined by the SBS and SBC parameters. This creates a
more ʻdigitalʼ or computerized look. Instead of smoothly moving down
the screen, the characters jump from preset position, to preset position, all
the way down.

Auto-Point Size/Spacing Checkbox

This checkbox takes the Number of Streams and automatically adjusts the
point size of the characters and the Space Between Characters, to fill the
screen up with characters. There is an upper limit on the point size of the
characters, so if you have too few streams, it wonʼt fill the screen up. This
is basically a quick and dirty way of filling the screen up.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 50

 New Streams Overtake Old Checkbox
Normally, the speed of streams will be such, that even when randomized,
no streams in the same ʻslotʼ (or groove or whatever) will catch up to one
thatʼs in front of it. The first one will always get off the screen before the
second one catches up to it.

This checkbox overrides that. With this checked, streams can overtake
older streams and overlap on top of them.

No New Streams
This prevents any new streams from being created after the first set of them
are displayed.

Stream Spacing and Attributes Section

This section controls the ʻlookʼ of the streams. The spacing between
characters, and between the streams themselves, whether they fade in or
out, and the opacity. The spacing between characters acts either similar
to what leading or tracking would be in print, but it varies depending the
orientation of the streams.

Space Between Streams and Randomness

These two parameters control the spacing of the characters. Space
Between Streams (SBS) moves the streams closer or further away from
each other. This works regardless of the orientation of the streams, or if
theyʼre on paths or not. Use this to spread the streams across the screen
or pull them on top of each other.
TOP: The Space Between
Streams is normal, and the
streams look like they are
scattered along an edge.
Space Between Characters and Randomness
Space Between Characters (SBC) does the same except for characters.
BOTTOM: The streams are Essentially the same as tracking or leading, depending on the way the
pushed together with a
negative Space Between
streams are oriented.
Streams setting and all
have the same origination The two parameters also control how the matrix is set up, when you select
point. Snap To Grid. If you want the characters to be closer or further together,
adjust these two to get the right character ʻspotsʼ.

The Randomness parameters here and for Space Between Streams (SBS)
behave the same as other Randomness parameters, except they have a
more dramatic effect on the animation. This is what lets the streams break
out of the ʻgroovesʼ we talked about earlier.

By default, SBS controls where the grooves are. By setting the SBS

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 51

 Randomness to something above 0, each stream will be close to the
groove, but doesnʼt need to be exactly in it.

This is very useful for increasing the complexity of your animation and
making things look less ʻpresetʼ. Streams can overlap, some will be close,
some far, itʼll give you a much greater sense of natural motion. Exactly the
opposite of Snap To Grid.

These can also be set to negative values, allowing you to get the streams
or characters to bunch up together. This is very useful in the case of
Direction Randomness.

Fade In and Fade Out

These cause the streams to taper off in opacity as they are coming or
going. Itʼs actually more correct to say that it causes the characters
opacity to taper on/off. The Fade In value is how long it takes a character
to become fully opaque from the time it appears on the screen.

Likewise, the Fade Out value is the number of frames before a character
will start fading out. Since there isnʼt a definite ʻlifespanʼ, this is calculated
from when the character was created. So if it appeared on screen on
frame 10, and the Fade Out value is 90, then on frame 100, it would start
to fade out

Opacity and Opacity Randomness

Opacity simply determines the overall opacity of the streams. Nothing
complicated here. At 100%, the streams is fully opaque, at 0% the
streams are fully transparent, and you canʼt see them.

Time Offset
Think of Time Offset as a way of moving an invisible Time Marker to
a point along the Timeline, and being able to set that point as 00:00:
00. Youʼre not moving After Effectʼs marker, just an internal one for Text
The results of Snap To Matrix.
Grid. The TOP image has
streams scattered about.
Time Offset cycles through the animation and allows you to begin the
At BOTTOM, all of the
characters are locked into
animation at that point. For example, say you like the way Text Matrix
grid positions. looks on Frame 90. Setting Phase to 90 will cause Frame 0, to look like
Frame 90 and the animation will continue from that point. Itʼs a great
way of getting around any lag time waiting for the streams to generate
onscreen.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 52

 An example of Time Offset. Notice that the LEFT
screen shot is 90 frames out at 03:00. At RIGHT,
the screen shot is at 00:00, but Time Offset is set
to 90 frames.

The result of both these settings is the image at the

top. They produce exactly the same result.

Time Offset also provides an easy way of ʻtime remappingʼ the effect. Just
start Time Offset at 360 or something, and animate it backwards. Youʼll
have streams crawling up the screen. Although, if you have a bunch of
other parameters animating as well, it may get a bit confusing. Youʼll have
everything animating forward in time, but Time Offset will be animating
backwards, essentially.

Stream of Streams Hah! A new feature! Text Matrix allows you to reverse time, while moving
forward in time. A necessary feature for time travel.
Imagine having a piece
of metal with 10 grooves
cut into it. Water can only Path Controls Section
go into the grooves. The
streams of water may not One of the most exciting things about Text Matrix is the ability for streams
be constant, so you may to follow paths. Simply create a mask on the layer youʼve applied Text
have two small streams Matrix to, assign that path to the streams using the Text Path parameter,
in different parts of the
and youʼve got streams of text flying all over the screen! Make a mask of
groove.
a star or wave and the streams will happily follow around the outline.
The streams can ONLY
be in the grooves, so if The combinations of character, stream, and path attributes opens up
you count up the streams, a world of possibilities and different effects. Most parameters can be
including the cases where ʻrandomizedʼ, causing random variations in the font size, speed, stream
there are two streams in length, and virtually everything else.
one groove, you could
possibly have more than
Text Matrix also supports animated paths, so you could animate the wave
10. However, you will
never have more than 10 and the streams will follow it along, undulating with the wave motion.
grooves for them to fall
through.
Limitations to Paths
This is basically how One of the downsides to using paths is that they do slow down the plug-in,
Number of Streams work.
especially for long animations. Time Offset [see above) also affects this.

The further into the animation, the more streams that need to be kept track
of, and the slower the particle system gets. Having to keep track of the

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 53

 streams on the vector path gets a bit processor intensive. Just something
to be aware of as youʼre using it.

NOTE TO USERS OF AE ʻCOMPATIBLEʼ APPLICATIONS: Paths donʼt

work in anything but After Effects. Most AE-compatible applications donʼt
support that part of the AE API. Itʼs a limitation of the host application,
not the plug-in.

Preset Path
If you select one of the paths from this pop-up then anything selected
in the Path pop-up is ignored. This provides a quick and easy way of
selecting some common path shapes. They work like normal paths, except
the size can be adjusted with the Path Size parameter, which provides an
additional way of animating within Text Spiral.
Time Offset and
The Wave, Double Wave, and Square Wave have a particularly useful
Keyframes
attribute. They never end. So unlike other open paths, as you animate the
One odd thing about Time Start/End Point your text makes like a bunny and keeps going and going
Offset is how it affects
and going in a wave.
keyframes. Keyframes still
happen at the time theyʼre
set at, but if you use The Spiral and Square Spiral shapes bounce when you hit the center. If
Time Offset, you shift the you animate the text down into the center, it doubles back on itself.
beginning of the timeline
out. So that the beginning
of the Timeline, isnʼt really Path Size
the beginning.
This only works for the preset paths. It allows you to scale the paths up or
If you set Time Offset to down, making adjustments easy. Makes for some cool animations.
90, 03:00 on the Timeline
is your real starting
point, not 00:00. So any Text Path
keyframes that are set
This pop-up simply allows you to select which path you want to use. Since
before 03:00 wonʼt be
seen. it recognizes any path, you can create a variety of paths and try them
out with a given animation, or use the same animation to follow different
Make sure you keep shapes.
this in mind when using
Time Offset and setting
keyframes for Text Matrix. Orient Character to Path
This adjusts the rotation of characters to the angle of the path, keeping
each character perpendicular to the path.

Reverse Direction checkbox

This causes the text to follow the path in the opposite direction. Usually a
path has a direction. It goes from the first point created to the last point.
Text will be flowed according to that, with the first character of the text by
the first point created.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 54

 Reverse Direction switches that default, so that the first character appears
by the last point creating and flows towards the beginning of the path.

Path Start/End Point

This moves the starting point of the path. Usually, streams will start at the
top, and work there way around a path. This parameter allows you to shift
Picky Paths
the starting point.
At TOP is your standard
path. Turn on a mask from
the pop-up, and this is
what youʼll get.

The BOTTOM image has

the Start Point moved
90 degrees, and the
Orient Characters to Path
checkbox is selected.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 55

 Section IX : Text Grid

Introduction
Text Grid is a plug-in designed to fill a background with characters or
symbols. These characters can remain static or change randomly and
are spread over a grid. The characters can flow across the grid and you
have complete control over the characteristics and the way they behave
(direction, speed, etc.).

You can define the number of rows and columns, the spacing, and
introduce randomness into the grid, so itʼs not so grid-like. Grids are really
great, but there are times when you want your grid to ʻthink different.ʼ
Adding a bit of chaos will do that.

Options Box
This is where youʼll set the font, and set up any custom text and how it
appears.

Youʼll see later that you can set the rows and columns in the ʻgridʼ that
the text is displayed in. If you manually enter in text (or use a text file
via the ʻLoadʼ button), Text Grid will ignore the columns setting and
create however many columns is needed to display your text. Rows are
acknowledged and the number of rows set, will be the number of rows on
the screen.

Covered in the Common Parameters Section

- The Text Dialog Box
- Random Characters
- Preset Characters
- Lower Character and Upper Character Limits

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 56

 - Font Size and Randomness
- Rate of Change of Characters and ROC Randomness
- Randomness Seed
- Hinting

Character Attributes Section

Character Attributes is where youʼre going to set up how the individual
characters look and behave. There are other parameters in other sections
that affect what individual characters do, but this section lets you set up
their basic behavior.

Color, Random Color, and Frequency of Color

Color defines the color of the characters. Pretty straightforward.

Random Color and Frequency get a little more interesting. By setting

Frequency to something other than zero, Text Grid will start randomly
giving characters the color defined by Random Color. The higher the
Frequency amount, the more characters will have the Random Color. If
Frequency is set to 100%, the entire grid will be the Random Color.

If the Random Color is exactly the same as the normal Color, the Frequency
slider wonʼt appear to have any affect, as itʼs replacing one color with the
exact same color.

One interesting thing to do with this is to set the Random Color to the color
of your background. If you have a black background, set it to black. This
will make the characters with the Random Color invisible… well, not really,
but you canʼt see black characters on a black background. If something
passes behind the black characters that isnʼt black, then, yes, youʼll see
the black characters.

Grid Setup Section

Grid Setup allows you to determine what the grid is going to look like.
How many rows or columns, positioning, etc. This is going to form the
basis of whatever effect you try and achieve, so this is a good place to
start when youʼre setting everything up.

Grid Position
This sets the upper, left hand corner of the grid. All rows and columns go
out from here. If you animate the Space Between Columns, or the number
of Rows, they will all animate from this point. Itʼs similar to an anchor point
in After Effects.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 57

 The Grid Position can be animated, and can be positioned off the layer.
This can allow you to pull off some nice effects using the boring old position
point. For example, you could animate the GP down, while lowering the
number of rows, and make it appear as if rows are being subtracted from
the top and bottom of the Grid.

Rows and Columns

They simply define the number of Rows and Columns in the Grid.
Characters are then filled into the various slots.
Mono y Mono
However simple, virtually every other parameter is affected by the way
The thing to keep in mind
with Space Between Rows
the Grid is set up, and these are the two primary controls for doing that.
and Columns is that since The look of your animation is going to rely heavily on how many Rows
Text Grid IS a grid, all and Columns you have and the spacing between them.
the characters ʻslotsʼ are
equal distance from one
another. This creates a few Space Between Rows/Columns, and Randomness
problems with fonts that
arenʼt mono-spaced.
These parameters allow you to set up the spacing between your rows
and columns. These would be kind of similar to setting the Leading and
Many fonts are designed Kerning in a normal text program.
to vary the space between
characters, depending The Randomness slider varies the space between the individual Rows and
on what the character is. Columns by some random amount. This creates a much less rigid grid. It
Look at the ʻiʼ and the
will still be obvious that there is a grid, but it eliminates the ʻpatternʼ of the
ʻgʼ above. Due to the
way the normal font is grid (e.g. 5 spaces, then a column, 5 spaces then a column, etc).
set up, there appears to
be more space between
the two characters than Moving Rows and Columns checkbox
between other characters. This only matters when Flow Speed is set to something other than zero.
However, if you look at the
Usually, Flow will cause the characters to move across the grid, from
mono-spaced font, this is
clearly not so, and itʼs an column to column, row to row, but the grid will stay stationary. For
issue with the font. example, like a stock ticker, where the characters move across the screen,
and are replaced by other characters as they move.
Thereʼs no real solution
for this problem in Text If Moving Rows and Columns is selected, the characters will stay in their
Grid, other than to use positions in the grid, and the entire grid itself will move, in one big block
a font where the spacing
of text. New characters will not be added as the rows and columns move,
isnʼt such an issue. Itʼs
definitely something to be nor will new rows or columns be created as the existing ones move.
aware of, though.
Jitter Section
Jitter moves the individual characters around from their normal spots
on the grid. The characters stay more or less confined to their place in
the grid but shift a given amount every so often. This creates jumping,
dynamic text.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 58

 Be careful, as too much Jitter can make your words unreadable. However,
it can impart a sense of energy or stress onto your letters.

Row Jitter and Column Jitter

The amount that characters shift is controlled by the Row Jitter and Column
Jitter parameters. The higher these numbers, the farther away from the
original position the characters will move. You can set this to some really
Got the Jitters
high amounts, however, especially for video, we recommend against it.
TOP: A normal grid. You can create some nasty flickering effects if this is set too high.
BOTTOM: A grid thatʼs
been heavily ʻjitteredʼ.
Jitter Frequency and JF Randomness
That said, at more moderate amounts, it can create some really nice effects.
The Jitter Frequency and JF Randomness, help prevent the flickering at
these amounts. Jitter Frequency controls how often the characters change
positions. If this is set to 4, then each character will change positions every
4 frames. This helps remove any flicker, and if you want the characters
readable, this makes the text more legible for viewers.

JF Randomness helps vary this change rate, and prevent EVERY character
from changing every four frames. Set at 25%, some characters will
change every 3 frames, some 4, and some 5. Obviously the higher you
set this, the wider the range.

Flow Section
Flow pushes characters in the grid, and moves them in a direction. The text
ʻflowsʼ across the grid, creating various patterns, or revealing words.

If the text has been defined in the Options Dialog box, this new character
will be pulled from the text entered there. Otherwise itʼll be another
random character.

Flow Speed
This controls how fast the characters move across the screen. Itʼs relative
to the font size (the font size controls the spacing of the grid). The bigger
the font size, the slower a given Flow Speed will move the characters.
Actually this is really in pixels, but since a bigger font size, means more
pixels to cross before you get to the next column or row, the font size has
a big effect on this.

Remember, itʼs a grid, and characters can only jump from one position to
the next. It canʼt smoothly travel from one to the other. So the characters
have to sit still until they would have traveled to the next grid space.
For example, if a character is moving 1 pixel per frame, and the next

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 59

 column is 16 pixels over, it has to wait 16 frames before jumping over. You
canʼt have it moving before then, because it would be all the way in the
column, and that defeats the purpose of having rows and columns in the
first place.

Flow Direction
This is the direction that the characters will flow in. It can be set to go in
In the Flow of Things
any direction. Again, because characters can only move from position to
Flow can be useful in position in the grid, diagonal motion looks particularly jumpy. This works
creating stock tickers,
best if set to 45 degree angles.
scoreboards, or other
similar types of displays.
Characters will move Adjusting the Space Between Rows/Columns Randomness or the Jitter
across the grid from row to amounts can affect how this behaves and looks. The less like a grid the
row, or column to column. characters appear to be arranged in, the smoother the flow in any given
direction, including diagonals.
As characters move from
one column to the other,
they are either replaced Change During Flow checkbox
by the character from the
column next to it, or, if By default, when Flow Speed is set to something other than zero, the
there is no column next characters wonʼt change. This is because, as the characters are moving, if
to it, by a completely new they start changing, it becomes impossible to detect a pattern, and it just
character.
looks as if each character is changing randomly.

If youʼd like Flow to pay attention to the Rate of Change parameters,

just select Change During Flow. Usually, if Rate of Change is set to 5 or
higher, a pattern is detectable and wonʼt adversely affect the results of the
characters moving. It helps if ROC Randomness is used to prevent every
character from changing at the same time.

Magnify Section
The Magnify Sections distort the text that underlies them. These sections
are quite possibly the most powerful parts of the spark. They allow you
to create all sorts of different distortion effects, especially when used
together. The two sections are definitely worth exploring.

Letʼs explain the parameters briefly, then weʼll discuss how they work
together.

Read This Part!

The first, and most important, thing to know about the Magnify controls,
is that you need to set Width and Height to something OTHER than 0.0.
This is what they default to, so you can play with all the other controls
until your face turns blue and not have anything happen. Make sure both
Width and Height have positive values.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 60

 Magnify Position
Specifies the center of the effect. Position this over the character or
characters that you want magnified.

Magnify Strength
Magnify and Taper Sets how much Magnify will enlarge the characters. This can be set
A couple examples of how quite high, so experiment with it. Itʼll go up to 1000%, which results in
to use the Magnify and characters being about 10 times the original size.
Taper controls.
One interesting aspect of the Strength parameter, is that if you set it
The TOP image is a normal
taper, set to 0. to zero, the rows/columns affected, will disappear. You can use this to
remove rows in the middle of the grid, or use both magnify points to
The BOTTOM image has slowly remove lines from the top and bottom or sides.
Magnify Strength set
really low, like 20. And
Taper is set really high, Magnify Width and Height
like 400. This creates an
inverted taper. Determines the number of columns and rows in each direction that will be
affected by the effect. This goes in both directions, so a setting of 2.0 will
actually result in 4 columns/rows being affected. 2 in one direction, 2 in
the other.

Magnify Taper
This tapers off the Magnify effect. If itʼs below 100, the characters will
fall off and get smaller, as they get further away from the center. If itʼs set
above 100, the characters will get larger.

If you want the characters to fall off from the center and blend in with the
outlying characters, set Taper to 50%.

Mixing Maginify 1 and 2

The Magnify controls were designed to create a ʻMagnification Glassʼ
effect (surprise, surprise). As characters flowed under the center point,
they would get larger, and as they moved away, would get smaller
again. With the Taper set up correctly, this can be a seamless effect with
characters going from normal size, to big, back to normal size.

This turned out to be one of the more interesting set of controls in the entire
set of plug-ins, particularly if you mix the two Magnify points together.
You can create textures of shrinking and growing characters. The Taper
control can cause the characters to almost disappear. If you set it to 0,
looking at the edges, they are almost reduced to nothing.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 61

 Using the second magnify point, you can cause some of these characters
to grow back, or further distort the distortion created by the first magnify
point. Obviously, the magnify points can be animated to make all sorts
of undulating, flowing, and just generally organic motions among the
characters.

Through a Using Expressions

Magnification Glass
You can link the position points to tracking data or other parameters
The Magnification Glass (using Expressions or Motion Math), and have the points move, or the
effect, which is the basis width expand based on what other layers are doing. Particularly with
of the effect described in the addition of Expressions in AE 5, this can become a very cool and
ʻMixing Magnify 1 and 2ʼ, relatively easy effect to do.
has some interesting off-
shoots. If youʼre only using
one line of text, you can
use the magnify effect to
run across the line of text,
enlarging each character.

With Taper set up

correctly, this creates
characters jumping up in
size and calming back
down to their normal size.
Just animate the position
point along the line of
text, and thatʼs it. Getting
text to behave this way
is something thatʼs fairly
difficult to pull off in After
Effects otherwise.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 62

 Section X : Screen Text

Introduction
Screen Text is designed to imitate text scrolling up a screen. You can have
it generate random numbers, characters, or words, or enter your own text
and set up a simple style text scroll.

The text can slowly reveal itself, as if itʼs being typed in, or lines can
appear all at once. You can even set it up so only one line is displayed at
a time. This is useful if a large amount of text needs to appear, and you
want each new line to replace the previous one. Much easier than setting
up 30 layers and cutting between them!

Options Dialog
This is where you tell Screen Text what font to use and where you set up
specific text to be used. In either case, you can generate words randomly,
or you can tell the filter to read words or lines sequentially.

Uneven Typing
If you want to add a
bit more realism to the
text, when emulating
a computer screen, try
to vary the speed a
bit. Most people, when
typing, donʼt type lines at
a consistent speed, and
even computers vary how
fast they output results.

Often, typing happens

in bursts of speed. Try
wiggling the Display Covered in the Common Parameters Section
Speed between .3 and 1
using hold keyframes. - Random Characters
- Lower/Upper Character Limit
- Font Size
- Rate of Change of Characters and Randomness
- Time Offset
- Randomness Seed
- Preset Characters

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 63

 Font Size Randomness
Normally, weʼd just point you to the Common Parameters Section where
this parameter is described in full. And you should still go there, if you
haevnʼt already.

But in the case of Screen Text, while FS Randomnaess operates just like it
does elsewhere, it produces a pretty nice effect when cranked up. It varies
Length Randomness the Font Size, which creates a nice pattern among the lines. This pattern
Catches Mono adds to the effect of randomly generated lines.
When playing with line
lenght, keep in mind that
fonts with normal spacing
Starting Point
will cause the lines to vary This is the origination point of the text. The text scrolls up (or in whatever
in length slightly anyways. direction the Direction of Lines parameter is set to) from here.
This is due to the fact that
most fonts have certain
letters that are closer Length of Lines and Length Randomness
together than other ones.
Controls how long the lines are. Randomness plays a key role here in
allowing Screen Text to generate realistic looking displays. Normally,
you would have lines of varying lengths, and this is exactly what Length
of Lines Randomness creates. With it set to 0, you just get one big block
of characters scrolling up the screen. With Randomness set to a positive
amount, the lines are created with different lengths.

If you use a mono-spaced Scroll Speed

font, where all the spacing
between letters is exactly Scroll Speed controls how fast the lines scroll in the direction set. By
the same, all lines with default, lines scroll upwards. However, you can use the Direction dial to
the same number of have them move in any direction.
characters will be exactly
the same length. The speed is in pixels per frame. The higher the value, the faster the lines of
text will move in the given direction. This affects many other parameters.

If the Scroll Speed is set to 0, by default, one line is created and it does
nothing but sit there. This is because each line of text has to move out of
the way before a new line of text can be created. If the Speed is set to 0,
then the first line created never moves out of the way.

You can see this effect

by comparing a font like
Frequency of Overwrite
Times New Roman, to Frequency of Overwrite sets the speed that the one line is replaced, with
something like Monaco or another random or manually entered line of text.
OCR A (which comes with
many computer systems).
Frequency of Overwrite ONLY works if Scroll Speed is set to 0. If Scroll
Speed is set to 0, only one line of text is produced. Frequency of Overwrite
determines how often this one line of text changes.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 64

 You can either have Screen Text generate random lines, or, like usual, it
can pull the lines of text from the text dialog box. This can be helpful in
situations where you want several lines of text to display one at a time and
donʼt want to have to set up transitions.

Color, Random Color, and Frequency of Random Color

Scroll Speed Controls
Color, as you might have guessed, defines the color of the text. Random
Many Things
Color and Frequency of Random Color allow you to set an alternative
As usual, the Scroll Speed color, and the frequency that it appears. The color is then randomly
determines how fast lines applied to lines that are produced as the text scrolls upwards.
of text move between
rows. At a given scroll
speed, a line of text will The higher the Frequency, the more lines will appear with the alternative
take just as long to reach color. If you set Freq. of RC to 100%, then all lines will be the color
the top of the screen specified in Random Color.
(assuming it started from
the bottom) with Lock to
Grid (LTG) on, as it would Vertical Alignment
with it off. In fact, itʼll
take just as long to move Vertical Alignment and Lock To Grid allow you to constrain the characters
between rows. to Screen Textʼs underlying grid. With both of these selected, actually,
you end up with an effect very similar to Grid Text.
A line wonʼt move up a
row, until it would have Vertical Alignment constrains the characters to columns, spacing the letters
gotten there normally.
out evenly. This sort of forces the characters to be mono-spaced, however,
Meaning that if rows are
20 pixels apart, and lines due to varying character widths the result can be a little odd. You can
usually move at 2 pixels adjust this spacing by changing the Space Between Characters parameter
per frame, it takes 10 in the Line Spacing section.
frames to get to the next
row, regardless of whether
LTG is on or not. The only Lock To Grid
difference being, with LTG
off, the lines smoothly Lock To Grid (LTG) constrains the lines to set rows. Instead of the normal
move between rows. smooth motion you see when the lines are scrolling, LTG causes the lines
to jump between rows.
The Scroll Speed setting
can be ignored if Display
Speed is set to something Space Between Lines and SBL Randomness
other than 0, and the DS
Controls Scroll Speed Space Between Lines controls, hmmm, how much space appears between
checkbox is selected. This lines of text. The amount is measured in pixels. This acts similar to leading
is because Display Speed in a normal word processor. A new line of text wonʼt appear at the Starting
causes the lines to be Point until the last line created has moved far enough away to make sure
typed on, appearing one that there is enough space between the two lines.
(or more) character at a
time, instead of appearing
all at once. If Lock To Grid is turned on, this defines the space between rows. The first
row appears where the Starting Point of the text is at, and all subsequent
rows are spaced out according to this parameter.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 65

 SBL can be set to have negative values. So if you donʼt want new lines to
wait for old lines to gettout of the way, just set a negative value here. Of
course, the lines will bunch up and may not be readable, but if thatʼs the
effect youʼre looking for, then youʼre set.

Space Between Characters and SBC Randomness

Defines the space between characters in a line of text. This is similar to
Old Lines Out
tracking in a normal word processor. This only works on the whole line,
One thing to remember is there is no way of adjusting the space between individual characters.
that in Screen Text, new
lines donʼt get created until
the old lines have moved If Vertical Alignment is turned on, SBC this defines the space between
out of the way. If you have columns.
lines going horizontally, it
may be awhile, depending
on the length of the lines, Direction of Lines
before a second line is
Direction of Lines, oddly enough, controls the direction that the lines go
created.
off in. It allows you to have text scrolling down, at a 45 degree angle, or
Likewise, if lines are going going horizontal.
at an angle, there will be
less of them than if they Be aware of where your Starting Point is. If itʼs at the bottom of the screen
were going straight up and the Direction dial is pointing down youʼre not going to see very much.
or straight down. It takes
All the lines of text will be going right off the bottom of the screen into
longer for lines moving at
an angle to get out of the oblivion.
way.

The distance they have to Display Speed

move for a new line to be This allows the lines of text to be ʻtypedʼ on. The value here refers to
created is determined by
characters per frame. So a setting of 1.0 is going to be the usual value.
Space Between Lines.
Higher values result in blocks of text appearing at the same time, which
By default, all lines are can cause the effect to not look very realistic. Depending upon what youʼre
typed on simultaneously. going for, the blocks can make a more ʻold-schoolʼ computer look.
Since new lines simply
need to wait for old lines You can also have values between 0 and 1.0. This will cause characters
to get out of the way
to be added slower than every frame. For example, .5 would cause a
before appearing, you
end up with several lines character to be added every other frame. .01 will result in a character
typing themselves on as being added every hundred frames. Just divide 1 by the value to get the
they scroll up the screen. number of frames that characters will be added (1/.01 = 100, 1/.5 = 2).
This can be an interesting
effect, but not generally
what you want. DS Controls Scroll Speed
DS Controls Scroll Speed prevents this from happening. With this selected,
itʼs a bit like turning on Lock To Grid. Lines wait until they are completely
typed on, then jump up to the next row, making room for a new line to
type itself on.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 66

 Appendix A: ASCII Codes

What in the world is ASCII? It stands for American Standard Code for
Information Interchange. Yeah, I know…whatever…BUT, itʼs the codes
that computers use to tell one character from another. Generally, in every
font you run into, 65 will be a capital letter A, 102 will be a lower case
letter F, 48 will be zero, and so on. Thereʼs a couple ASCII charts in the
appendix if youʼre looking for your favorite character.

Things get interesting when you go above 127. Thereʼs guidelines that
most fonts follow as for whatʼs in the slots between 0 and 127. Above 127
is mostly uncharted territory, and youʼll find a wide range of characters
and symbols up there, depending on the font.

If you have font that is made up of all symbols, clip art, or Chinese
characters or something else, then the lower 127 all fly out the window as
well. It really only applies to English text fonts.

If youʼre on a Macintosh and are curious about what characters a given

font has and where theyʼre at, do a search for a utility called Key Caps.

The characters between 0 and 31 are not going to be of much concern,

since they donʼt usually print or theyʼre undefined. These are special
codes that tell the computer or display to do something, such as a Line
Feed (LF) or End of Transmission (EOT). The interesting areas to notice
are 48 - 57 (numbers), 65 - 90 (Upper Case), and 97 - 122 (Lower Case).
The ASCII values are in decimal, which is what the filters use to set the
character ranges.

The values above 127 exist, but vary for each font. Usually special symbols
exist in the range from 128 - 255, such as the trademark symbol, foreign
currency symbols, or pi.

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 67

 Appendix A: ASCII Codes

Text Anarchy 2.0 manual © Digital Anarchy 2003 p. 68