What I would like to know in this poll is which option listed below you identify with.
Option 1
You mostly use Text for legals or other static stuff and you only need a 2D Tool. What you need is improvements to the current Text module, improvements like:
Integration in Batch / Effects like the other tools.
Context views, batch view, result views.
Colour Management
Better font management
Better render quality
Better kerning
Better styles
Update multiple nodes / segments at once
etc.
Option 2
You use 3D Text in Action because it offers more creative controls than the 2D Tool. You want a tool that not only gives you the ability of doing more simple stuff like legals, but you want something you can do motion graphics with. You need:
Deformations on words/characters
Matchbox effects able to effect individual letters, paragraphs, layers, etc.
3D Extrusion and modeling
Texturing capabilities
Schematic based text manipulation
Option 1 only
Mainly Option 1, but Option 2 as well
Option 2 only
Mainly Option 2, but Option 1 as well
Option 1 and 2 equally
0voters
If this is a topic you feel strongly about and would like to talk about it over zoom for 15-30 minutes please send me a direct message so we can schedule something.
Do not hesitate to comment in this thread as well.
I might add that in either version it would be great to have smart quotes so that my clients don’t ask why the quotation marks and apostrophes look wrong, and to have the ability to create our own fonts and map svg’s to the keys. I was able to do that on Chyron 3 in 1982. We used to have the ability to load “logos” but they were not vector, and we seem to have lost that along the way.
The only thing I feel strong about is rasterization. It’s annoying to have clients argue about the edge quality of their legals. So if Text can match a .png from Photoshop, thank you.
-faux bold on any font Ă la after effects
-ability to constrain/wrap text to the area inside or out of a gmask.
-ability to use it as a slate generator such that it can easily stick a slate at [start frame - 1] when you kick off a batch render.
-animate on by character or word
-ability to access layer content via the python API. doesn’t necessarily need to have a built in method for the full breadth of styling controls but it would be great to be able to actually edit or create text in flame with a script, or even better, a bunch of text from a CSV read in by a script.
also, as someone who mostly does Option 1-style title work I still think a schematic based approach would be great and might allow people from both camps to get everything they want? I personally would love if the new text tool worked off the same general architecture as action/gmask tracer/image such that we could to transformations with regular axes, copy in tracking/position data from other nodes, copy/use gmasks as constraints or path splines… seems like it would open the door to a lot of cool possibilities.
I have found that changing “auto softness” to any specified AA sample setting does this.
It is possible you have pickier clients than me and that may not cut it, but “auto softness” is way off in a way all the other AA settings are not.
Agreed on that. And the AA processing is so cheap for this, why not just have a high setting as default?
But my opinion shouldn’t carry any weight. I only use Flame text for slates.
Whenever I do small text on the timeline, I use a pre-built BFX that creates the text at twice the size, piped into an action that sizes it down 50% with some EWA and AA of 2. I find this works really well even with tiny type.
Another Issue I’ve been seeing more and more is that clients are using a lot of adobe typekit fonts which I have yet to be able to work with in Flame. It would be great if somehow (maybe there’s a work around) these could be read.
It would be great to get some of these (sorry if some has been mentioned already):
a layer editor ala Action or the GMT.
Default Key Commands that mimic (Pagemaker) type setting hot keys used in all Adobe Type.
Retractable and snapping guides from the UI
Layers that snap to guides - according to type baselines and x-heights, not transform bounding boxes (nobody wants snapping to descenders)
A smart credit roll tool (raster, timing, font and size aware to make jitter impossible) (along with making sure no one can ever use Bodoni Script for rolls)
A floating GUI Keyboard that is font usage aware - as well as responsive to modifier keys - that can be used in tandem to the physical one.
The font selection field rendered in the selected font.
Style names rendered in approximate weight, size, setting
Interactive tab type selection from within the ruler
Selection of paragraph justification via pictogram
Prioritization of typesetting over type effects (put the size, leading, tracking on the left) (maybe this one is just too picky?)
Conciliatory language from the confused about their bagel inferiority.
Before that, I wanted to publish a brief thought:
I think the module based workflow for text is a hinderance.
What I have often found myself wanting is to be able to set a lock up in text and have that piped downstream as vectors that can also be extruded sometimes. The problem with 3d text is that it is difficult to edit kerning and other letter based attributes.
Also if you are versioning languages, sometimes the translations will be larger which really messes up the batch because the text gets cropped in the text module so then you have to resize which messes up the animations downstream.
Although I voted for both options, I’m on the fence about trying to make text all singing and dancing. After Effects is the king of motion graphics especially with its ability to work in tandem with C4D. To try and better that would probably take too much work, however there are aspects of integration with cg that might be beneficial elsewhere, in different scenarios.
I have emulated photoshop. Get a text module write your stuff, set AA to 16. Duplicate the text module and attach it to the previous text module but set softness to 2. This improves the clarity to that of photoshop. It’s a faff but it has made very fastidious advertising creatives* content.
*The type who like to move things by half a pixel.
my wishlist: