#guides

┈ ˳ᴗ ᴗ) ｡ OO1, setting up your project :

once you've downloaded alight motion, you must create your project! there are multiple settings available, but here is what is needed for this specific tutorial: a transparent background, a 1:1 canvas ratio (specifically for non-pro users due to the watermark), and a 12 fps frame rate.

┈ ˳ᴗ ᴗ) ｡ OO2, setting up your text/font :

now that your project is open, click the plus button in the bottom right corner of your screen. it should open a tab of options. directly above the plus sign should be a button labeled "text". click that!

input your desired text and play around with the settings! there are many ways to customize your text in alight motion, not just through these settings, but that will be discussed later after the effect tutorial, just to keep things less overwhelming. for non-pro users, try your best to keep your text as far as possible from the watermark so cropping is easier. once you've done that, extend your text duration to 2 seconds (if it isn't already)!

alight motion has a wide range of preinstalled fonts; my favorites being averia sans libre, henny penny, mystery quest, im fell english, fontdiner swanky, kosugi maru, gamja flower, and other fonts you may be familiar with if you use metadata fonts for rentry. if your desired font is not available, you must download it to your device and unzip the file before importing it:

┈ ˳ᴗ ᴗ) ｡ OO3, applying the effect :

this is the tricky part of the tutorial! confirm the changes to your text and click on the button in the bottom right corner that should say "effects". press add effect. at the top of the effects page, look for the search button and search "text transform", then select standard settings! we only need to change 3 or 4 things, so watch the video below carefully.

if you find that the letters in your text are moving too far apart or too closely, it can be adjusted by changing the offset settings. in the video, i used -5 for x and 5 for y in the offset as an example, but it all depends on the selected size of your text. note that your x and y should be additive inverses of each other, so if your x is -3, then your y would be 3. if your x is -7, your y should be 7, and so on! do not be concerned with the speed of your effect, it will be changed later.

for those who want to customize your text further with gradients, strokes, outlines, or shadows, go back to the tab with the effects button and begin experimenting with these options! this is not just for text as well, images can be edited to have a border and drop shadow too. (p.s., i recommend using border instead of stroke for outlining text!)

┈ ˳ᴗ ᴗ) ｡ OO4, exporting the project :

feel satisfied with your project? it's time to export! unselect your layer of text and click on the green export button at the top right of your screen. choose the GIF option, but don't click export just yet! click the arrow on the right to manage the settings of the gif. this allows you to change the final frame rate and resolution size to minimize the overall size of the gif. changing the resolution is completely optional, especially if you plan to import this text onto a larger sized graphic, but its very important you change the frame rate to 'low"! this will slow the speed of the effect and minimize your project to approximately 6 fps, ensuring no duplicate frames.

heres an example of what i was able to come up with after experimenting & exporting! if you feel that this speed is too fast still, you can change the speed of the gif on ezgif.com. for those who did this without pro, you can also crop the alight motion watermark off on ezgif as well!

i hope this was helpful? if you have any questions, feel free to comment and i'll try my best to help!!! also very sorry this tutorial took me like... a week? idk. tumblr was NOT agreeing with me when i made the first draft of this.... good luck and have fun editing <3!!