Animating Fading Text on a Sign

This Tutorial demonstrates one way to animate a sign with no text to text that is visible.

Create the object to be used a the sign, and position it and a camera view which will be used to render the animation. Here a thin tin cube was created , then position, subdivided twice and converted to mesh. ( If tin, wax, or biosphere are used for the sign object, they will need to be converted to mesh )


Next text will need to be created. here the text was created as a hierarchy so the letters could be position closer. After the repositioning the hierarchy is flattened, so all the letters are one object. Also for this technique the text will need to be 3D with or without beveling, and all color options white.


Then the text was positioned to the center of the sign, and in the mask workspace the text is completely masked. The sign object is painted black in the paint workspace.


In Composer zoom in from top view, and position the text so it just touches the front edge of the sign. The position menu can be used to nudge the text into place.


Once the text is in position do a subtract boolean, selecting the sign first then the text. When the boolean is complete the sign will have the text engraved into it. Also the a mask and paint residue will be left over from the text.


In materials set-up a material in the Diffused channel other than paint. In the Ambient channel use paint and set the value to 100%. To make the text more visible ( when seen ) use paint at 100% in the reflective channel. Now when the sign is rendered, the text looks like it's painted on the sign.


With this wood texture the diffused channel shows through the ambient channel, making the text look like it's painted onto the wood.

To make the text fade in and out, use mixer in the Transparent channel. Edit the mixer placing Paint in the first color and Black in the second color, for the Mixer use Time. To edit the Time, this 5 second animation will use 1 Number or Periods, with a full Sinus wave. The A value is set to 0.000 which will start and end the animation using the Color 2 channel ( Black ) of the Mixer. The B value is set to 1.000 which will use the Color 1 channel ( Paint ) Half way through the animation. In between the start, halfway, then halfway and end, a combination of the two colors ( paint and black ) will be used according to the value set by the sinus wave, making the text appear to fade in and the out.





To make the text a solid white when it's fully visible use white for the background color in world properties. The the text will appear fully white due to the refection channel.




This Animating tutorial is written and provided by : Stephen Ray