Gleam Running Through the Letters

In this tutorial we're going to create a very common animation that many people implement on their texts.

Let's begin!



i. Create a new 550*400 px Flash document, set the fps to 20 or higher and make the background any color but white. The best choice will be black, though.

ii. Create some cool text with your Text Tool (T). No need to create anything as complex as mine - it can just be a simple yellow text.

[ your text can be very simple]

iii. Convert your text to a Symbol (F8). Name it whatever you want, but choose Movieclip in Type.

iv. Double click on the Movieclip to work inside it.

v. Once inside, select your text and press Ctrl + B to Break it Apart. If you did that, it will become a fill. It is only in this form that we can make a mask from it.You can also go ahead and name the only layer that there is "text".


vi. Copy (Ctrl + C) the letters. Then, create a new layer (call it "masker") and Paste in Place (Ctrl + Shift + V) the letters.

vii. Create another layer (call it "maskee"). Select your Rectangle Tool and draw a white rectangle on it. Oh, and set the alpha of this rectangle to 70-90%.

viii. Right-click on the topmost layer (which should be the "masker" layer; if it's not, then drag it up so that it is) and choose Mask in the drop-down menu that will appear. Doing that will result in creating a mask. Thanks to it, the white rectangle is not visible beyond the letters.

xi. Apply a blur filter to the white rectangle on the "maskee" layer. Set the x and y blur to 50 or so.

x. Select the 10-th frame of the layer on which you keep the white rectangle, and press F6 to create a Keyframe there.


xi. On this newly created Keyframe, move the white rectangle to the other side of the text, so that they are not touching each other.

xii. Right-click anywhere between the 1-th and 10-th frame on the layer we've been working and choose Create Motion Tween.

Now, press Ctrl + Enter to preview the animation and admire your masterpiece.


I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial. If you feel like learning some more, why not see other cool tutorials on this website?

Cheers!