Hello folks, I was able to create a very short clip of animated handwriting on a classroom board. This is very time consuming. My request to reallusion is to provide a feature to match handwriting with written text in some form without having to program keyframes.
The below clip as you can see is not perfect. Here are the steps I followed.
1. Create your CTA3 video using your character in a classroom scene - WITHOUT THE TEXT. Just program Sandra character to write something on the board. Board will remain blank.
2. Now in PowerPoint, write the text you want. Then simulate the motion of THAT text in PPT. I use MS PPT 2016. Be sure to use a green background for your text in PPT (as close a color of the board in CTA3 as possible). Use the Animation pane and look for tutorials on YouTube to simulate your text in PPT. You can animate the text in PPT as if it's being hand-written. Export this PPT handwritten simulation animation to a video. It will be only one slide so it will be a short video.
3. Final step: Import your CTA3 video (Sandra hand-writing) AND PPT simulation video (with text animation) into a third party video editing software. Put the text on the top track, CTA3 output video on the bottom track.
4. Blend the two videos, as follows: Align the text to Sandra's height, adjust the speed of the video to match handwriting to Sandra's CTA3 simulation. This is not going to be perfect 100% matching animation. But it's going to be good enough to simulate classroom handwriting.
I am sure there are other ways to do this in CTA but I did not want to keyframe one character at a time. It's brutally cumbersome and will take up too many tracks in CTA3. I prefer to do it in one shot where you can manipulate the text in one go, then play fancy-foot in the final step of the blend. Good luck, your comments welcome.
Edited
7 Years Ago by
K.M.