Kinetic Typography in ProShow Producer

Using ProShow Producer to create animated text in its most basic form is as simple as matching up two Caption Behaviors.  In this example, I have the word “Layers” pushing the word “Caption” off the screen at the bottom by dropping down from the top.  

In this lesson we’re going to create this animated phrase “Embrace Elegance” using only the Caption Behaviors again.  In the previous example, we could probably have any two words, of any length and even in different fonts, if we wanted to, because the motion used was one word pushing the word out of the way.  They didn’t really interact together.  In this case, we have two words that are similar in character length and we would definitely want them to be the same font and size.  We’re trying to create the illusion that one word literally transforms into the other.

This quick lesson is simply to show that you are not only NOT limited to two word phrases, but that when choosing the Caption Behaviors, you might be able to find an animation that actually represents the word with its motion.  When it comes to Kinetic Typography, having your motion either compliment the words or be a literal representation of it will bring this creative art form to the next level.

In this lesson we’re going to be using Caption Behaviors and we’ll be keyframing the rotation attribute, all while creating an animation that emphasizes the phrase “Moving Forward”.

This little animation uses the same concept of using Caption Behaviors while keyframing rotation, but it uses Character Rotation instead of the full layer rotating.  

One of the more subtle design elements of a good Caption Animation is the presence of inertia.  That’s physics law that states an object in motion wants to stay in motion and an object at rest wants to stay at rest.  Inertia is what makes your body lurch forward a little bit when you slam on your breaks in your car.  Your body was in motion and it wants to stay in motion, even though the car has abruptly slowed down. You can add inertia to your own animations by adding simple little bounces or leans when your words come on screen quickly.  

We’re going to create one last effect using only Caption Layers before we move on to Text Layers.  We’re going to make the word Rainbow, flip over and showcase the actual Rainbow colors!  

For this final lesson on using only Caption Layers to create Kinetic Typography, we’re going to create this opening Title sequence for a Graduation.  

Continue to create your Graduation Title Slide.

In the next two lessons you'll start to use Text Layers instead of Caption Layers and begin to see all of the extra features that become available to you, such as Masking.

Continue to build the More Words Here graphic and learn how to change the words to use again in the future.

In the next few lessons, we’re going to create this Kinetic Typography animation using several different layer effects with Text Layers.  This will get complicated. It takes an awful lot of keyframes to make a layer do multiple things over the course of one slide, but I’m going to break this down into small manageable lessons.

Now that you've added the first line of this graphic using a solid layer and a Caption Fly-In, we're going to use 3D Tilt to reveal our next line!

In this final lesson for this graphic, you'll learn how to simulate inertia with position keyframing.

In this final animation we’re going to create this simple looking credit scroll.  Now, it may look simple, but let’s take a closer look.  Each word, Special Thanks and To are all coming on screen at different times, just like we did in the last lesson.  That means they are all separate layers.  But….then they all move and rotate together, as if they are one layer.  That uses Modifiers and well calculated Text placement, which means this animation isn’t as simple as it looks.

The "Special Thanks To" was the hard part....now let's add that name scroll!

I’d love to tell you a well guarded secret that makes all the great text animations easy, but I’m afraid that isn’t the case.