MOTION & DEFORMATION

Bring the outlines themselves to life

Pulse, trapezoid, sphere, barrel, and hand-drawn effects. Layer five deformations that act directly on character outlines to create organic motion.

• Five built-in effects
• Per-character phase control
• Target selected parts

How to UseSettings Reference

Available Effects

Effect	Motion	Sample
Pulse	Expands and contracts the outline inward and outward
Trapezoid	Deforms the outline into a trapezoid along the selected axis
Sphere	Expands and contracts the center like a spherical surface
Barrel	Distorts the outline into a barrel or spool shape
Hand Drawn	Combines outline wobble with positional jitter

TIP

Setting Pattern Count under Hand Drawn to 1 freezes the wobble pattern. This is useful when you want a hand-drawn look in a still image.

How to Use

1. Set Page to Animation Settings.
2. Turn on Enabled in the group for the effect you want.
3. Set the deformation amount with Amplitude (or Wobble Amplitude / Fine Wobble / Jitter Amplitude for Hand Drawn).
4. Adjust the speed and cycle with Speed (Hz) and Phase (or Frame Rate and Pattern Count for Hand Drawn).
5. If necessary, restrict the effect with Targets.

TIP

Multiple deformations can be applied at the same time. Layer effects to create more complex motion.

Offsetting Motion Timing for Each Character

Pulse, Trapezoid, Sphere, and Barrel provide per-character timing controls:

• Char Phase: Offsets the cycle phase per character to pass wave-like motion smoothly along the text.
• Char Delay: Adds a delay before each character starts moving, giving each character a staggered start.
• Step: Shifts the motion from smooth continuous values toward stepped, frame-by-frame changes.

Deforming Only Selected Elements with Targets

Use the Targets field inside each effect's settings group to apply the deformation to only specific characters or parts. When left blank, the effect applies to all parts in the text. To target specific elements, use c for characters and p for parts followed by their 1-based index:

c1-c3       # Characters 1 through 3
p2 p5       # Parts 2 and 5
!c1         # All characters except character 1

The indices match the order in Character Settings and Part Settings. See Targets Format for the full syntax.