how to creating this kerning effect in motion

Hi

I'll add a link here for a project file with both directions set up.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/86bejjru35pfnhd/Slide%20Text%20Sequence.motn?dl=0

If you have a look at each pair of text sequence, you can see there are 2 main settings to configure

1: The X position - either positive or negative value depending on which direction you want the characters to arrive from

2: The directional value - either forwards or backwards

So depending on the direction in - the sequence will be forwards in/backwards out or backwards in/forwards out

..forwards and backwards here relates to - in a sequence - the first letter of the string animates first in- or last in/the last letter of the string is first in/last out

I added opacity here just for demonstration - you are masking so that is not a factor

Also secondary - I have 'In' behaviors set to 'decelerate' and 'out' behaviours on accelerate - that's just a personal preference.

Hope this helps

The actual effect, or at least the basis of it, is already available in Motion.

Select your Text object, then go to Behaviors > Text Basic and apply the Slide In effect.

You can also apply the Slide Out effect, but you will need to align it with the end (out point) of the Text object in the timeline. You can do that easily by setting the playhead to the last frame of the Text and with the Slide Out behavior selected, type Shift - ] (right bracket) to align the end of the behavior to the playhead.

If you want to customize the overall look of the behaviors, select one of them — the behaviors inspector should open. You will need to click the disclosure triangles for Format (to reveal the positional change parameter) and Controls (to reveal the animation controls). You may want to play with the Position X and Spread parameters *and* you might want to lengthen the timing of the behaviors to slow things down a bit.

The rest of the effect shown in the video can be done with masking... but that might be another topic for you when you get there.

Hi Odog

To answer your question - yes there is an easier way to get it done. Like Fox recommended - there is a preset with that exact animation - you don't need to involve tracking - it is actually just a position movement.

Look for this preset

Or, you can make your own with generally a position setting from either a positive or negative X value position

-depending on the direction - from the left or from the right - you would want to change the behavior direction between forwards/backwards to stop letters running in over the top of each other.

Your own solution looks nice though.