Rotation and Movement Animation - Help

It looks like your proposed solution should work.

I am not exactly sure how you went about the two letters orbitting around each other. I'd probably use a null object and have them both orbit around it with different phases.

Then I'd put them all in a 3D Group and move the group.

Something like this?

I have it alternate left/right so that it would loop...:P

I put a period in the center for reference.

[I'll be AFK for a few hours...]

...Or more like this?

The first thing you need to do is set up the text. If you use the center "dot", you need to set up 3 Text objects, each with its own character (you can substitute a Circle object for the center if you like). All of these need to be in the same Group.

Set the Text Alignments to Center. You also need to set the Baseline of each character so that it aligns with the center of the character (there will be an onscreen control you can see to help you visualize it.) The baseline will depend on the Font Size - and you will need to take it into the negative direction.

Set all the characters at Position 0, 0. Move the first character in the negative X direction and determine the spacing relative to the center dot. Move the last character the same X distance in the positive direction.

You can keyframe or add a behavior to the Group > Transform > Rotation > Z parameter. I used a Rate behavior which will apply degrees per second. I set it to -180º so it takes 2 seconds for one complete revolution.

To keep the characters from turning with the Group rotation, I added a Link to the Transform > Rotation > Z of each character and linked them to the Group > Transform > Rotation > Z parameter and set the Scale to -1. So, as the Group "spins", the characters will spin in place in the opposite direction - appearing to remain upright throughout the animation.

Now all you need to do is animate the position of the parent group.

If you run into any problems... let me know!