Text Messaging Tutorial (With emojis, reactions, and animated overlays)!

Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of ‘Episode Original’ stories include this cool animated overlay and include text effects, emoji effects, and ‘react’ to message. I thought that maybe I should try to replicate it because of how cool it seemed. Fortunately, I replicated it and I’d like to share it to the community! :slight_smile:

What I’m talking about:

How to do it:

First off, you have to create overlays and a background. Thankfully, I already created the PHONE overlay, the THUMBS UP EMOJI overlay for the reaction (if you’d like me to create more, let me know), and the text messaging background!

After downloading those three PNG files, add the phone template and the emojis template as overlays and name the phone overlay: WHITE PHONE and name the thumbs up emojis overlay: THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION – name the PLAIN WHITE BACKGROUND: INT. WHITE TEXT MESSAGE - DAY

Next, just copy and paste the following script and edit your messages to your likings. (NOTE: whoever you want on the RIGHT side of the messages, set them as the main character on the ‘CHARACTERS’ tab!)

@overlay WHITE PHONE create
@overlay WHITE PHONE moves to layer 200
@overlay WHITE PHONE shifts to -2 -563
@overlay WHITE PHONE scales to 1.230 1.230
@overlay WHITE PHONE opacity 1
@pause for 0.3
@overlay WHITE PHONE shifts to -2 -6 in 0.5
@pause for 0.5
@zoom on 160 284 to 250% in 1

set format phonetext
INT. WHITE TEXT MESSAGE - DAY

@zoom reset

    NARRATOR
3 (you can change 3 to whatever number of messages) unread messages

    NAME
Insert text message for left side person.

    NAME2
Insert text message for right side person.

@overlay THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION create
@overlay THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION 2 create from THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION
@overlay THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION shifts to -40 -1000
@overlay THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION 2 shifts to -40 -1000
@overlay THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION scales to 0.8 0.8
@overlay THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION 2 scales to 0.8 0.8
@overlay THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION opacity 1
@overlay THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION 2 opacity 1

&overlay THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION 2 shifts to -40 600 in 2
@pause for 0.5
&overlay THUMBS UP EMOJIS REACTION shifts to -40 600 in 2

    NARRATOR
👍️ NAME liked your message 👍

    NAME
Insert text message for left side person.

    NAME2
Insert text message for right side person.

set format cinematic

END OF SCRIPT

The PNG are free to use (created by me). Also, giving credit is greatly appreciated but not required.

Obviously, you can add as much text messages as you’d like and edit when the character reacts to your message. I hope you guys found this helpful. If you’d like, you can recommend some other ‘Episode Original’ story templates that I can possibly replicate down below!

19 Likes

Thank you this is very helpful for the future

1 Like

are these overlays are free can i use them

Of course!

1 Like

Yeah, of course! It’s free for everyone to use. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

thanks

1 Like

Tysm!!!

1 Like

hi
if you can help me it would be great.
I can’t change into cinematic format back from phonetext
The error is: unexpected set_format: cinematic
plz help:(

Thank you! It is very helpful! :smiley:

Bump bump Bump

This is kind of you!

Hello, I was wondering if you could help? How do I get my texting scenes to come up so my texts look like they are typing a message like on iPhone message when it has the three dots (…) as I’d like a break between each character typing? :smile:

1 Like

Hi,
are you still making emojis or taking emoji requests @braedon ?

u should type: set format cinematic !

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