Hey guys, how’s it going.
This is Serge,
and welcome back to my channel.
In today’s video,
I’m going to show you
how you can create this cool
write on text effect for your Final Cut Pro project
using Apple’s Motion 5.
Now, this can be done in Final Cut Pro,
but it’s much easier using Motion.
If you don’t have Motion 5,
I’ll leave a link in the video description
of this same effect done in Final Cut Pro,
check it out.
Let’s open up Motion
and take a look at how it’s done.
When you first open Motion,
you’re greeted with a Project Browser,
where you select the type of project you’ll make.
For this example,
let’s select Final Cut Title.
Up in the top right corner,
select the video resolution
and frame rate to match your Final Cut project,
and set the duration to 4 and a half seconds.
Click Open.
By default,
Title projects start off with a background layer,
and a text layer.
We don’t need these,
so command click both of them,
and press Delete.
Next, in the top of the viewer,
from the scale drop down menu
select Fit.
And last,
from the Menu bar, select Window,
and show HUD,
the convenient little heads up display.
Click and drag it down,
out of your way.
We’re now ready to make our custom title.
First let’s add and adjust our text layer.
In the bottom of the viewer window,
from the text drop down menu,
select Text,
and click and drag out a nice big text box.
Enter your text,
and over on your left had side,
select the inspector tab.
Align your text to the middle
of your text box by clicking the Align to Center,
and Align to Middle buttons.
Next, select your font.
For best results,
try and use a font that looks like handwriting.
The font I’m using is called Luna,
and I’ll leave a link in the video description
to where you can download it.
Resize your text so it’s nice and big.
To get your title exactly in the middle of the screen,
select the Group layer,
and click and drag the title to position it,
using the yellow lines as guides.
Next, in the bottom of the viewer window,
select the brush tool.
In the HUD window,
make sure the write on
and smoothing checkboxes are selected,
make sure the brush color
is anything but black or white,
and adjust your brush width
so it’s slightly wider than the wides part of your text.
What we need to do next,
is trace out the letters in our title
with the brush tool.
This has to be done all in one shot,
so when you click and start drawing,
do not stop until it’s done.
Don’t worry if you don’t trace it exactly with the letters.
We can fix that later.
Position your brush tool,
hold down the left mouse button,
and start tracing out your letters.
Trace it out the same way you would write it,
and try to do it as smoothly as possible.
This paint brush layer
will be used as an image mask,
so the way you draw this
will be how your title is revealed.
Once a part of a letter is painted over,
it’ll be visible in your title,
so going over it again with a brush tool
won’t matter.
I’ll trace out all my letters,
then without letting go of the mouse button,
come back around and dot my I.
If we play back our clip,
this is how our finished title will be revealed.
If I stop my playhead at the end of the title clip,
you can see a couple parts of my title
that aren’t covered up.
Let’s fix that next.
Click on this arrow to go back to the select tool,
and in the viewer, double click your text.
This reveals the brush strokes
as control points that can be adjusted.
Bring your playhead back to the start
of your timeline,
zoom in in your viewer,
and go through your clip
one frame at a time and adjust your brush stroke.
Remember, anything under your paint brush
will be revealed, so adjust your brush stroke
to make it as precise as possible.
Go through your full clip,
and make sure at the end,
your entire title is covered up.
Set your viewer scale back to fit.
Next, select your text layer,
right click on it,
and select Add Image Mask.
In the inspector,
you’ll see a Mask Source box.
Drag and drop your paint stroke layer
into this box.
Now, if we play back our clip,
the paint stroke layer will be used as an image mask,
revealing our text below it.
Let’s make this animation a little quicker,
by ripple trimming the paint stroke layer
in our timeline to about one and a half seconds long.
Our title is now ready to be published to Final Cut Pro.
From the menu bar select File,
and Save As.
Give your title a name,
and select a category and theme for it.
To make mine easier to find,
I’ll make a new category for it,
and just call it Custom Titles.
Click Publish.
Your title is now ready for use in Final Cut Pro.
Go back to Final Cut Pro,
open the Titles and Generators browser,
select the category you placed your title in,
and your new custom title
should be there, ready for use.
If you need to adjust the placement
or size of this title,
do not use the controls in the text inspector.
This will adjust your text,
but not the image mask,
and ruin the effect.
To adjust your title,
use the transform controls in the video inspector,
so the image mask adjusts with the title.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial,
and if you did,
make sure to check out the playlist
linked in the video description,
for more cool title and text effects.
Thanks for watching,
and I’ll see you back here next week.