This is the third part of an eleven part video series for Apple^R Motion^R 5 by macProVideo. Building on the information covered in the previous lesson, Working With Objects, Michael Wohl explains how a text object works much like a shape object when creating, manipulating and animating text on the Canvas.

The Text Tool
Wohl begins by creating some text on the Canvas and a tour of the text attributes tabs in the Inspector, such as Format, Style and Layout. He demonstrates how to change individual format attributes, such as Size, Tracking and Line Spacing, both dynamically on the Canvas and using the controls in the HUD or Inspector. He also demonstrates how these changes can be made on the entire text, a selected section or just one letter and points out that these changes can be animated - a hint of good things to come.

Additional Formatting Options
In the next few videos, Wohl moves on to the text Format, Style and Layout options. In the Format tab of the Inspector, he discusses the dynamic Font menu and the basics such as Baseline settings and Alignment controls. He also demonstrates more advanced controls including the All Caps, Scale and Slant.

Text Face, Outline, Glow and Drop Shadow Attributes and Presets
Moving on to the Style tab in the Inspector, Wohl covers the four Face, Outline, Glow and Drop Shadow attributes and demonstrates how to create complex styles combining the Color, Gradient and Texture of these attributes. I especially found interesting his demonstration of how to use the Texture setting with a video as the source. Now that you understand the attributes, Wohl moves on to the Presets menu in the Style tab and how to save your own custom presets.

Transforming Individual Letters
Transforming letters, such as changing and/or animating the position and shape of individual letters is the next topic. Wohl demonstrates how to use the Transform Glyph tool to manipulate the scale and rotation of the individual letter on the Canvas.

Creating Paragraph Text
You won't always have just one line of text in your project, so Wohl covers how to create paragraph text and use the controls in the Layout tab of the Inspector to manipulate the attributes such as Direction, Auto-shrink and Layout Method. He also demonstrates how to use the Margins controls in the Inspector for paragraph text.

Continue →

https://www.macprovideo.com/tutorials/motion-application

Disclosure: I was given free access to the video training for the purpose of this review article. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.