After Effects Tutorial: Handwriting Effect Animation

Learn how to create the handwriting effect! In this After Effect tutorial, we will take text and animate it on with a “write-on” style. This effect is very easy to do and there is two ways to do it. The fast way where you can add the stroke effect to your masked outline and animate the end parameters. Or the best way where you use the pen tool to outline your text and use the stroke effect for maximum control! After watching this After Effects tutorial you will be able to create your own handwriting effect!
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[@atpdx]

Pro Tip: Skip drawing in the paths by hand and simply right click on the text layer and select Create--->Shapes from text. This will give you each individual letter as a shape. Then you can click the animate properties on that group to add trim paths and there's several different options for them to animate on. Under trim paths be sure to change trim multiple shapes to: individually and it will draw one letter at a time and look more in line with the handwritten effect.

[@scarlet3189]

BLESS YOU

[@francesalvarado8818]

but how does it turn into a path?

[@adrienneanderson-smith2257]

But that's what he started out quickly mentioning. I am using proper calligraphy not a font. This method covers FAR more.

[@HomeStudioBasics]

@@atpdx Maybe I'm doing something wrong but I followed what you said exactly and it looks awful. It's basically drawing each individually as a fill while filling the negative space as well. It doesn't look like someone's writing it at all.

[@RyanLennoxBradley]

He said to do that, but it's the "quick way" not the "proper way"

[@dragonproduction8720]

watch How to Create Realistic Clouds in After Effects ruclips.net/user/shorts7qaGlgrJPFc

[@ntonyproduction]

Great tutorial even 6 years later. Thank you!

[@maryjteraji]

This was the most effective and simplest explanation of this effect I've ever found. Thank you

[@kvegaaa]

I have next to zero knowledge of after effects and this was so easy to follow along to. Subscribed!

[@pointdatainc5909]

Was able to use this process on a friends event advertising. Thank you!

[@Grensom]

You are awesome, took me like 5 minutes to recreate and it looks great. Much appreciated

[@CheapCheerful]

Third time you've helped me, thank you SonduckFilm

[@gothmaniow]

ha!! ya know what ?? ive had this program for years and i never knew about the "Generate Stroke!!" awesomeness cheers man

[@AvhieGli]

yours is the only tutorial I understand and was able to follow correctly without confusion! 😍 Thank you for sharing this video!

[@deannadionne9243]

Thanks! Very satisfying to do this.

[@naomir4870]

For anyone having issues with the stroke animation showing up - when you go to draw with the pen tool, draw on the text layer. You don't need to create a new layer for the pen drawing. Then just make sure you have All Masks selected and Reveal Original Image selected as well.

[@gavincstewart]

You're a life saver. I spent way too much time trying to figure this out, and your tip immediately got it working. Thank you, so so much.

[@RISHIKABHALWAL]

My stroke is starting from the last text. Is there a solution to this ?

[@comedy4cat]

Used it in my video, you're the best!

[@RexAhmedYt]

exactly what i am looking for. Thanks

[@thebarefootbanjara]

Thanks bro you saved my day.. Lots of blessings

[@pikaxuls]

Thank you for this tutorial!

[@fernandosanz1369]

Just got yourself a new subscriber!
Thanks for the video. I've seen a couple of tutorials for this same process, but they had an annoying background music, no voice over... This one is just perfect, very smooth, right to the point, easy to follow.
Looking forward to more tutorials from you 👍

[@ReBbK15]

Thank you so much!! this is exactly what I´ve been looking for! you´re amazing!

[@keaton718]

Classic effect.

[@caddiganfilms]

Thanks for this! In my case I was working with an image of the signature (vs text) - I just had to swap the Paint Style to 'Reveal Original Image' (in case anyone else is using that method).

[@davidshuttmedia373]

Hero

[@nastyazmyzgova]

This was 5 years ago but you still out here saving lifes man THANK YOU

[@caddiganfilms]

@@nastyazmyzgova Glad I could help!

[@PeterBaerveldt]

Thank you so much! Works great!

[@kevinnaughton9597]

Thanks dude!

[@ImTash]

' and it's an absolute disaster' LOL This was so easy omg i was expecting it to be way harder! THANK YOU!

[@PBRProductions]

Thanks for the lesson!

[@dhanashrimangaonkar4220]

Helped a lot

[@Mazzyandzephyrsarchives]

I love you for this

[@imaginatrix2258]

Perfect! Thank You!

[@aryanrajput9696]

love you man

[@kora_lee]

4:03 Thanks for the trick!

[@MaisieL-f2q]

Thank you so much! Helpful, well explained and straight to the point!

[@Dave-ei4jp]

3:39 "..and it's an absolute disaster." i paused after that sentence and it made me laugh so hard haha thanks for the tutorial its great!

[@JohnCawood]

Thank you!

[@c.el147]

Great tutorial easy to follow about to use it tonight for a friend. Thanks

[@DonGianiGuides]

Thanks a lot! It took me 10 minutes to reproduce it, that's telling how good the tutorial is! Great video Josh, subscribed.

[@prakashsharma-ht9ye]

you are the best

[@hohhyeltahhan5126]

Thanks for this video

[@tuhocae-aftereffecttutoria1886]

Thank you for nice and useful tutorial

[@Mister73C]

Thank you so much this is always so helpful!

[@Thysta]

Much thanks!!!

[@pedro_a_martins]

Thank you so much!

[@jpbogan_art]

Love your videos, mate. Thanks for your help

[@paulcristo]

Thanks for making it simple.

[@HomeStudioBasics]

Great video man! Simple, effective, and concise!

[@gilbert2185]

Very cool! Can't wait to use this!

[@wout4052]

strijder thankyouu

[@_Jackal_Gaming]

OH MY GOSH! Okay, there's a lot of people in this comment's section that are like "Oh, it doesn't work" Okay IF YOU FOLLOW THIS TUTORIAL TO A "T" IT DOES WORK! Thank you SonduckFilm for this tutorial. (If you are experiencing problems, make sure that you select the color of the animated text up at the top, that way it know what color to animate, that was my only problem.)

[@TheMsjohn99]

Thank you so much Josh. Best tutorial ever. Got an amazing result. you are awesome.

[@alinmorea]

thank you!

[@50Berland]

Great tuto, thank you !

[@M_Mel]

thank you for the beautiful tutorial it made things so much easier

[@BigBSTRDnl050]

You don't have to click out of the layer to add a new path. Just hit command and click elsewhere or just click the previous node before the last one you drew with the pen tool and click elsewhere, a new path will start

[@BigBSTRDnl050]

I did about 30 of these of someone's handwriting and in the case of doing an actual sentence you can trace word for word with the pen tool. The writing animation will look smoother and will take less time to complete

[@jammes327]

fabulous. thank you sir.

[@RoniBlar5555]

Thank you very much! This tutorial save me.
It's also good working with png files like logo

[@annisaratnan.5035]

great video, simple, and easily to understood!

[@imran7TW]

cheers bud !

[@AmnonSivan]

When i trace over the letters, is it supposed to be a mask ? a shape layer ? separate masks for each letter ?

[@vink1954]

It's supposed to be a mask. Use separate masks if necessary.

[@daniswararajendra7930]

Good Video Thank you so much for the tutorial

[@YoPierreUwannaComOutHere]

Thank you so much 🔥🔥

[@donutboy9576]

Thank you! :)

[@allenhowardphotography]

Very nice tutorial. Thanks for posting!

[@slamdubstep7618]

Nice!

[@rebeccarizzetto]

ruclips.net/video/wGgm-cZo8Wg/видео.html🎶😊

[@DirectorCMack]

Wow! This was awesome. I am a fan. He taught this exercise better than one of my instructors....Thank you Director CMack

[@TunerisFire]

This is perfect. Thank you!

[@horizonseeker270]

Very good, thank you

[@wadalapichu4873]

thank you very much for this!

[@bryanjames3247]

Thanks dude! Really helpful, keep it up!

[@RonanCharity]

I love this tutorial, I've come back to it countless times. Thank you!

[@Darksoul-cs2ob]

Im following this tutorial and I can't figure out how to get it to write on, I don't know why it's not working for me

[@Fujika]

thx you , nice tutorial !

[@ccuny1]

Oldie but goodie. Can't tell you how much time I lost labouring over trim path without really understanding what I was doing. This is a much faster method and having tried it on an old, smudged piece of text in a bitmap, it seems to works flawlessly. I tried to look in your back catalogue to see if there were any updates or follow-up videos. Still looking but would appreciate any pointers. In particular, you gloss over the final part at 4:02 too quickly for me to understand what you are doing and why it works.

[@Darksoul-cs2ob]

I can't figure out how tf you're getting it to write on I'm following every exact step and it doesn't work for me

[@angelicabautistajacob9684]

same

[@jaideepkhare5903]

Increase the brush size in the Stroke panel.

[@Darksoul-cs2ob]

@@jaideepkhare5903 thankyou I don't have to do this anymore though it was for a class I was taking at the start of last year

[@SamMart13]

@@jaideepkhare5903 ur a life saver

[@wajahatssmw3685]

thank you

[@hungryeyes8467]

Thanks a lot, man. Straight to the point!

[@rafaelskiarteportfolio1098]

THANKS A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@atiiqahsuhaimi]

Successfully animated my writing by following your video! Anyway, anyone knows similar tools that can be used on iPad?

[@daviekamau]

Thanks Sounduck film. I had waited for this tutorial.

[@tepshi]

nice, thank you

[@zoomex5]

Thanks! I've always wondered how to do this and now I can do it myself

[@anasonyc3983]

lifesaver

[@darkspace3316]

How to do the quick way? Can you show that?

[@rodolfoow]

Very good

[@shahzaibtariq]

Thanks

[@voyagerlivetwitch]

thanks bro

[@TheMrgagan09]

thenks

[@PeterZigmund26]

This is so perfect, thank you! ❤

[@izaakholsapple2113]

First off - excellent, and straightforward video on the topic.
Secondly - How do you address the issue of working with cursive where the stroke crosses over itself, revealing a later section of the stroke prematurely? Everything else looks great, but when it swipes from lowercase i to lowercase l it reveals part of the left side of the l out of order.

[@TheFishi]

Hi, my method for separate letters crossing over: The word is 'Class', the 2 S's overlap. Duplicate the layer, on the new layer remove all letters apart from that final 'S', make sure you keep the mask for that one, delete the other masks. On the original layer, retype the word as 'Clas' - remove the letter that is now in the new layer above. You'll need to reshuffle the word to fit the letter, fiddle around. And then move the start/finish point of the mask so it fits in the right time.
With crossover in the same letter, I'm yet to find a solution, sometimes playing around with the spacing can work.

[@izaakholsapple2113]

@@TheFishi Thanks for the reply on this! To clarify, the issue isn't two letters crossing over one another, but instead one letter, lowercase L that crosses over itself. So it starts on the bottom left goes up and to the right, and crosses itself leaving two ends sticking out as a result of the thickness of the stroke.

[@designedbyshyne]

this is awesome! I've always wondered how to do this! thank you

[@thesky_mdo]

good, thanks brother for share

[@benkastberg]

Great tute!

[@JulsFox]

Simply awesome and effective. I cannot thank you enough for this brillian trick! Other tutorials on RUclips are far too complicated but yours is an easy jewel!

[@lordgreenmusicofficial]

This will work great for my upcoming lyric video, thank you so much SounduckFilm! 🔥

[@Asigron]

Thank you :)

[@blackyandsamtpfote3660]

This is awesome! Worked perfectly and is eactly what I was looking for! Thank you ery much! :D

[@squirrelbee647]

need magnifying glass for this video

[@saimahaych]

lmao ikr

[@PWhatevah]

Perfect, thanks !

[@OnyxPlayCZ]

If you follow 100% it will work 100% That's it .. great tutorial and thx for it :)

[@OutxfOrder]

been using after effects for 8+ years and can't figure out at all why this won't work for me. Only some masks show up even though I followed exactly and have no clue why after trouble shooting. Might as well gonna recreate this with shape layers smh.

[@joelxo999]

tysm

[@r0an3v3]

Helped me make what I needed to make, and in CC2019 at that. Thanks a bunch.

[@guillermohoward8874]

God bless people who di this