Text effects - letters being written out

[Lileman]

I have a video i made out of a image ( looseleaf paper) and i want to put some writing on the image and make it look as if its being written out. Now ive seen tutorials of how to do this using your mouse to make the letters but i think it looks horrible, what im looking for a very easy way to have the letters written on the page as if i was writing the letters myself. Im not the best at photoshop and im very basic at premier. so if there an easy way to do this, what program and a guide to do it. appreciate the time. and if there is not a single program that does this what would be the best way. im open to many different suggestions. once again thanks

[redwudz]

This uses Flash, but it might give you some ideas: http://www.designtutorials.info/handwriting-flash-movie/

There are a bunch of fonts available that simulate handwriting. Here are a few: http://www.free-fonts.com/handwriting_fonts.html

You might be able to do it in Photoshop by putting the letters on your 'paper', then placing a blank version of the paper over it as a new layer. Then erase through to the layer with the printing. But I don't know how you would easily convert that to an animation. I'm not that familiar with Photoshop either.

A simpler method might be to use a graphics tablet if you wanted to use your own handwriting. I got a refurbished one from Wacom: http://direct.wacom.com/stores/2/Refurbished_Tablets_C35.cfm

[Lileman]

if i was gonna use the flash tutorial .. well i got a quick question how do i even go about writing in flash, i know nothign about it anyway thanks for the help. im thinking i write and do it in flash then convert it to avi or mpeg2

[grannyGeek]

If you happen to have Paint Shop Pro, they include Animation Shop that you can use to create the individual frames, and then save them in a sequence as avi.

Maybe PhotoShop has something similar.

I did something like this with Animation Shop, but the next time found an easier way -
Using graphics editor and VDubMod was easier than Animation Shop.
I used a scan of my signature, and made a 720x480 image.
Then made a sequence erasing a bit at a time, because it's always easier to destroy than to build.

Then I set them in reverse to look like the signature was being formed, I had to make my mind run in reverse a little bit.
Name the bitmaps with sequential numbers, like sig_01. sig_02, sig_03 etc.
Then load the image sequence into VDubMod, and save as avi.

You'll have to figure out by trial and error how many duplicate frames to create to make it display a natural-looking action, I think I used about 5 or 6 frames.

Low-tech solutions all the way!

maybe this is useful, I dunno . . . .

[liquid217]

You need to use rotoscoping. Take a look at this tutorial for Wax:

http://www.debugmode.com/tuts/wax/handwriting.htm

[Lileman]

You need to use rotoscoping. Take a look at this tutorial for Wax:

http://www.debugmode.com/tuts/wax/handwriting.htm

thanks for the suggestion but i dont want to use my mouse, i want it to come out nice. how easy is it to use after effecst to achieve this?

[liquid217]

I would assume that you could use a script style font, and then trace around that with your mouse or stylus in wax. It should work, although, i have never tried that before.

[grannyGeek]

@ SirScrub124
If you don't want to use a graphics editor to create your own image sequence, and you don't want to use Wax,

google is your friend


Link from creativecow for aftereffects tutorial

hope this helps

[Lileman]

i got it finally... yeah wax was a choice but i didnt want to use my mouse..... umm what i did was write out the text and saved it. letter by letter. put it into premier, reset the lenght of each image to about 15ms and its all good. thanks to all for the help

[grannyGeek]

so glad you got to work out.

[edDV]

You might be able to do it in Photoshop by putting the letters on your 'paper', then placing a blank version of the paper over it as a new layer. Then erase through to the layer with the printing...

That's the way I would do it. I'd prepare the before and after in Photoshop, then would use two layers in Premiere or Vegas to run a keyframed reveal to simulate writing. You could add a third layer for glints or other lighting enhancement.