In this tutorial, learn how to create a custom hand-written text animation using Adobe Animate. As an added bonus, I'll go over how to export it out as a GIF and place into an Adobe InDesign interactive project.
For this lesson, we'll be using the typeface Pacifico – a versatile script font that we can also add a custom animation to.
Creating Animation
In Adobe Animate, create a new scene by going to File > New.
Click the Web tab and in the Preset selections, choose 1024 x 768 (Very High).
Leave the Frame Rate set to 24 FPS.
In the Platform Type, choose HTML5 Canvas.
Use the Type Tool and create a text layer on your scene. Use a script font of your choice and type your message. In this tutorial, I used the word Welcome on a fictional portfolio cover.
With the Selection Tool, click on the text frame.
Go to Modify > Break Apart. You may have to do this step twice to fully break the text apart. Think of this as the same as converting text into Outlines.
Select the Eraser Tool and starting from the end of the text, working your way right to left, start erasing the text a little at a time. Each time you erase a piece, insert a new keyframe in the timeline. This can be done by going to Insert > Timeline > Keyframe or simply press F6 after each time you want to begin a new keyframe.
When the animation is complete, click on the text layer name and right-click any of the keyframes and select Reverse Frames.
Test out your animation by clicking the Play button in the timeline or pressing Return on your keyboard.
Here's an example of how the animation should look like at the end
Now that your animation is set up, there are multiple ways to export it. In this lesson, we'll export it as a GIF and then place it in Adobe InDesign.
Exporting Animation
Go to File > Export > Export Animated GIF
In the Preset selection dropdown, choose Dithered 128
If you want to increase the quality further, increase the pixels width and height in the Image Size section
Choose whether you'd like to have the animation play once or have it loop forever. In this tutorial, I have it playing once.
Follow along in the video as I go over how to place the GIF animation in an interactive layout in Adobe InDesign.