To meet broadcast demands for on-air AR graphics, Pixotope comes with a procedural text toolset that generates 3D text models and animations on the fly.

Pixotope Text Mesh

This object provides a wide variety of options and controls, including:

  • Phrase
  • Font
  • Glyph
  • Alignment
  • Bevel
  • Extrusion
  • UV scales
  • independent back/front/side/bevel material selections


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Properties

Once you place a Text Mesh or an Animated Text Mesh in the scene, you can control the appearance and behavior by changing its properties in the "Details" panel.


Most of the properties are animatable through the sequencer. The properties can also be used or set in Blueprints.

Text

  • Phrase - a string to be used for text mesh generation
  • Right to Left - a boolean determining whether the phrase should be generated from right to left (for Middle-Eastern languages)
  • Font - UFont that we want to use for text mesh generation
  • Horizontal Alignment - center, left or right
  • Vertical Alignment - center, top or bottom
  • Glyph Offset - added horizontal offset between every glyph

Geometry

  • Triangulation Quality - number of divisions along a text vector curve
  • Extrusion Distance - depth of the text mesh (in centimeters)
  • Bevel Size - depth of the edge chamfer (in centimeters)
  • UV Scale - the scale of the UV mapping
  • Should Generate Transition Geometry - if this value is True, previous geometry will be kept for animated transition; both sets of glyphs can be animated by setting to True (Per Previous Glyph Transforms and Per Glyph Transforms)

Materials

  • Material - material to use for a whole text mesh; in the future there will be more material options that can be assigned

Animation

  • Per Glyph Transforms - (hidden in “Details” panel) an array of added transforms for every glyph; gives infinite possibilities for Blueprint animation
  • Per Previous Glyph Transforms - (hidden in "Details" panel) an array of added transforms for every one of the previous glyph (if the Transition Type was set to "Slider Animation" before the Phrase has been changed); gives infinite possibilities for Blueprint animation

IMR Settings

  • IMR Render Pass - whether text mesh is to be rendered in the background or in the foreground on an IMR scene
  • Render CustomDepth Pass - value distributed to child glyph UProceduralMeshComponents, exposed for testing purposes
  • CustomDepth Stencil Value - value distributed to child glyph UProceduralMeshComponents, exposed for testing purposes
  • Custom Depth Stencil Write Material - value distributed to child glyph UProceduralMeshComponents, exposed for testing purposes

Statistics (read-only)

  • Contains information about the complexity of the generated geometry


Pixotope Animated Text Mesh


In addition to the controls of the Text Mesh, the Animated Text Mesh includes a built-in procedural animation system for transitions and idle animations.


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Additional properties


Animation

  • Transition
    • Transition Type - how to transition when a new phrase is assigned
    • Transition Animation - if the animated transition was requested, it is possible to choose a type of animation here
    • Transition Length - the time span of the transition
    • Current Phrase Transition Factor - new phrase appearing can be animated in sequencer or Blueprint using this slider
    • Previous Phrase Transition Factor - previous phrase disappearing can be animated in sequencer or Blueprint using this slider
  • Idle
    • Idle Type - type of idle animation to be applied
    • Idle Time Scope - a boolean determining whether idle animation should use the World Time or an Idle Custom Time
    • Idle Custom Time - a custom time that can be used for idle animations
    • Idle Yaw Speed - speed of glyph yaw rotating animation
    • Idle Roll Speed - speed of glyph roll rotating animation
    • Idle Scaling Function - a function determining the dynamics of idle scaling animation
    • Idle Scaling Speed - speed of glyph scaling animation
    • Idle Scaling Magnitude - the idle scaling animates between 1 and this value
  • Added Transform
    • Added Glyph Rotation - a rotation to be added for every glyph
    • Glyph Scale Multiplier - a scale every glyph is to be multiplied by



Video tutorial - 3D Text.

Add 3D Text

  • Drag and drop the Text Mesh from the Modes → Pixotope panel into your level

Add fonts

To learn how to add a new font, please follow the Unreal documentation: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/UMG/UserGuide/Fonts/HowTo/ImportingFonts.