I feel like I am having a “Sr. Moment” but I am in text in 2023 (timeline GapFX) and simply want to animate a nice kern over a couple of seconds to give an elegant float to a super. This is no problem but the minute I jump into my animation curves to set the curve to bezier and which I would then want to adjust so that we have a linear ride into the animation and then a nice slow to a subtle freeze every single letter in my text line has been separated in my animation curve on it’s own channel and I cannot locally adjust the kerning curve because each letter has it’s own curve. I have tried copy/link from the first letter to every other letter as a workaround but a channel link doesn’t work either .
This is infuriating. I am not sure what has changed but my guess is there must be some tiny button I have missed and I am hoping someone here can point it out to me.
I fear this will be one of those questions I die in embarrassment once the answer is posted but here I am!
Whenever I have done this I use 3D text in Action. I believe it has a tool specifically for this, and it can also be done using expressions with parented axes. The motion is much smoother as well.
If you type a string of letters, they naturally kern from the center. In the x position of the axis enter the expression text node name.kern*character number. In a practical sense, I would have a text node named text1. The character string would be the word “expressions.” The expression would be text1.kern*4. The fourth character from the left of center of the word expressions is x, so the letters would kern out from x. If I typed -4 it would kern from the n. If I typed 0, it would kern from the center. If the word were an even number of letters, such as the word “expression” the first letter to the left of center would be .5
