Handwriting shake / jitter - Stop motion animation

Handwriting shake / jitter - Stop motion animation

by Johannes Schwarz

on Aug 24, 2010 at 2:02:43 pm

Hi everyone,

I'm working on some Whiteboard Stop Motion Animation to incorporate in an educational project.

Now, I'm wondering if anyone knows a good plug-in or technique to achieve a shacking/jittery Text effect to add life to the text and make it less static in AE. I can't find an example of what I mean, but in stop motion you would loop several instances of a slightly different text to achieve this. The text then appears shaky or jittery adding life to it.

Anyone know how to do this in AE so the effect can be achieved without actually animating the text through the tedious stop motion animation process)?

Re: Handwriting shake / jitter - Stop motion animation

by Adriano Moraes

on Aug 24, 2010 at 3:46:14 pm

Hi there.

If I understand you correctly you can auto-trace the texts (or bring the paths from Illustrator) and then apply the scribble effect to it. And play with the settings.

Hope it helps.

Cheers.

Re: Handwriting shake / jitter - Stop motion animation

by Ryan McAfee

on Aug 24, 2010 at 3:46:37 pm

Possible wiggle expression? Maybe.

Ryan McAfee
Moon Community Access Television
http://www.MCA-TV.com

Re: Handwriting shake / jitter - Stop motion animation

by Karl-Jason Mawdsley

on Aug 24, 2010 at 5:56:55 pm

It depends what the final look you're going for is but you could apply something like Turbulent Displace > Animate the Evolution property > Precompose your layer > Then apply the effect Posterize Time to bring your frame rate down.
Alternatively, if you don't want your text to look distorted you can apply a wiggle effect to the text Rotation and Position parameters and then > Precompose > Posterize Time. That way your text will just move around in a jittery fashion.

KJ Mawdsley
Editor/Mograph Designer

Re: Handwriting shake / jitter - Stop motion animation

by Johannes Schwarz

on Aug 24, 2010 at 6:55:48 pm

Thanks for the helpful suggestions. I'll play around a little :-)

Re: Handwriting shake / jitter - Stop motion animation

by Johannes Schwarz

on Sep 2, 2010 at 6:23:17 am

Alright,

Just in case anyone searches these forums for this kind of thing, I let you know what I went with.
I found an example of what I was looking for:
http://www.vimeo.com/13149563

David Cribbin was so kind as to explain me his procedure and this is what I ended up doing:

1) I went to photoshop and typed a text.
2) On a new layer I traced the text with the brush tool (thickness as desired) using my wacom graphire pen
3) On yet another layer repeat step 2
4) delete original text layer
4) Import the two remaining layers into AE
5) alternate the layers every 3 frames
6) voila

Re: Handwriting shake / jitter - Stop motion animation

by Andreas Bremer

on Sep 30, 2010 at 1:20:47 pm

Hi,
I found a different way to achieve the handwriting / jitter effect:

1. create a textlayer (preferably using a handwriting font).
2. create a solid with fractal noise, I used standard settings, contrast 125, brightness 45, and a scaling of 55. (this may very with the size of your comp or text)
3. apply this expression to the evolution value: time*2500
4. Precompose the fractal noise layer
5. drop the "displacement map"- effect onto your textlayer
6. choose the fractal noise map as the displacement map layer
7. use luminance for vertical and horizontal displacement
8. play with the displacement values (I used "3").
9. drop the "posterize time" effect onto the text layer
10. set it to around 8 frames to increase jittering.

voila!

Re: Handwriting shake / jitter - Stop motion animation

by Kris Koster

on Mar 24, 2015 at 11:46:00 pm

Is there any plug in that can do this? I've seen something perfect for what I need, but it's FCP here:
http://store.pixelfilmstudios.com/plugin/effect-projitter

I was actually looking for same thing, but something for After Effects.

I did try manually doing it using Andreas Bremer's advice above, but as I'm not expert enough at AE, I think he left out a step, like stencil luma, alpha add, or something or other, as I followed the steps exactly and I can't achieve that effect.

Re: Handwriting shake / jitter - Stop motion animation

by Adriano Moraes

on Mar 25, 2015 at 4:11:14 am

Hi there Kris.

To make sure it worked I followed Mr. Bremer's instructions and it worked just fine.

Just make sure you un-check the eyeball (video on-off switch) for the Fractal Noise layer so the Displacement map can work and you can only see the text.

If you´re having some other trouble please just let us know.

Cheers!

ninguem
////http://cargocollective.com/ninguem/