Font Changer plug-in

Font Changer is a simple plug-in that takes a string of text and animates the font used. You can select up to five different fonts and have the text string change from one to the other either sequentially, as they’re listed, or in random order. The Font Changer controls are available in other filters as well, such as Cool Text and Text Hacker.

 

 

 

Options Box

This is where you tell Font Changer what font(s) to use and what specific text to display. In Font Changer, you can select up to five fonts and once in the plug-in, you can animate the fonts over time, changing from one font to another.

The text field is where you enter the text you want displayed. If you have a paragraph of text, you don’t need to worry about entering in carriage returns for each new line. Type text into the Input field or click the Load button to import a text file.

 

 

Font Selector

Specifies which font to work with. The numbers correspond to the order of the Font pop-ups. Keyframing Font Selector is the way to control the speed with which the fonts change. This works in tamdem with other parameters like Font Rate of Change and Font ROC Randomness.

 

 

 

Sequential Fonts checkbox

Determines whether the text string changes into these fonts sequentially, going from Font 1 to Font 2 to Font 3, or if they change randomly. If the checkbox is selected, the fonts change sequentially; if the checkbox is not selected, they change randomly.

 

 

 

Randomize Font checkbox

When turned on, this tells Font Changer to cycle through the fonts that you have loaded into the Option pop-up boxes. This checkbox blows away any choices in Font Selector control.

 

 

 

Font Rate of Change

Sets the speed at which the fonts change over, set in frames. At a value of 15, the font will change every 15 frames. This is the key parameter for Font Changer, so we’ll delve a little deeper than we do in the Common> Font & Characters page.

Depending on whether you have the Sequential Fonts checkbox selected in the Options dialog, a font will either change into the next font, or the plug-in will randomly select a font to change into from the list you’ve selected.

You can keyframe Rate of Change, but it’s a little tricky. Any change in the value will not affect the font currently visible. Once a font is on the screen, it will last for however long Rate of Change is set at the moment it appears. For instance, if a font changes while Rate Of Change is set to 10, it will last for 10 frames. If you animate the Rate of Change to 5 immediately after it changes, it will still last for 10 frames, but all subsequent font changes will last for 5 frames.

Shifting text: One issue that you’ll run into with Rate of Change is that most fonts are sized differently and have different built in Kerning. This results in the text shifting around a bit as the font changes. One workaround is to animate the Tracking to coincide with each font change and set up the Tracking to compensate for different spacing, which keeps the text string the same length.

 

 

Main Setup group

Go to the Common> Font & Character page.

- Text Position
- Font Size, Font Size Randomness
- Font Size Rate of Change, FS ROC Randomness
- Font Size Groups pop-up
- Font Rate of Change, Font ROC Randomness (see additional info above)

 

Go to the Common> Color & Rotation page.

- Vertical Writing
- Color
- Character Rotation, Rotation Randomness

 

 

 

Spacing group

Go to the Common> Spacing page.

- Tracking
- Leading
- Alignment pop-up
- Baseline Shift, Baseline Shift Randomness
- BS Rate of Change, BS ROC Randomness

 

 

 

Kerning group

Go to the Common> Kerning page.

- Show Kerning Pair
- Kerning Pair
- Kerning Amount