Text FX - 22 Animated Text Effects and a Typewriter for Godot 4

Animated dialogue text for Godot 4, in pure GDScript. A typewriter with 12 entrances for the letters, 22 living text effects written as simple tags, and pauses, speed changes and events written right in your lines. One node, one call:

$Dialogue.show_text("Hello [bounce]traveller[/bounce]... [pause=0.5]Watch [shout]out[/shout]!")

No C#, no .NET build, no plugin to enable. It is a normal RichTextLabel, so your fonts, theme and BBCode keep working.

22 effects that give lines a voice

• bounce: letters hop in turn and squash when they land (happy, excited)
• float: a slow soft bob (dreamy, magic, underwater)
• jitter: small nervous twitches (fear, cold, anger held back)
• shout: big letters shaking hard (yelling, impacts)
• swing: letters rock like pendulums (drunk, dizzy, sing-song)
• wobble: jelly letters (silly, gross, cartoon)
• glitch: letters jump, split into cyan or magenta and turn into other characters (machines, hackers)
• ghost: letters fade in and out and drift up (whispers, spirits)
• heartbeat: the word swells twice per beat (love, dread)
• prism: a flowing rainbow with even brightness (rewards, magic items)
• gradient: a two-colour gradient, still or moving (names, titles, rarities)
• sparkle: letters catch the light one at a time (treasure, stars)
• scramble: random characters decode into the words (hacking, messages coming through)
• neon: a humming neon sign that stutters now and then (bars, cities at night)
• spin: a wave of full turns along the word (spells, lucky rolls)
• orbit: letters drift on small circles (dizzy, dreaming)
• drip: letters sag as if melting (horror, heat, slime)
• lean: a wave of slanting, like wind in grass (sly, secrets)
• fire: flickering yellow, orange and red letters (anger, danger)
• quake: the whole word shakes as one block (heavy blows, monsters)
• marquee: a bulge travels along the word (titles, prizes)
• flip: letters turn over like cards (magic tricks, menus)

Every tag takes optional values ([bounce height=0.6 speed=2]) and they combine freely. Sizes are measured in font heights, so effects look the same at any font size.

A typewriter that feels written

• 12 entrances for each letter: fade, rise, pop, drop, slide, wave, spin, stamp, flip, unfold, scramble or instant. Letters can also leave with hide_text().
• Natural rhythm: a short breath after sentences and commas (not inside "..."), [pause=0.5] and [speed=0.4]...[/speed] for timing.
• Events in the text: [event=door] emits a signal when the typing reaches it: shake the camera, play a sound, change a portrait.
• Skip with one call when the player clicks, remaining events still fire.
• Voice blips: a sound per letter with a random pitch, every N letters, never on spaces or punctuation. Give each character their own voice.

Made for real games

• A ready dialogue box: portrait, name, animated text and a "next" marker. $DialogueBox.play(lines), then await conversation_finished. Click, touch or keyboard to advance.
• Signals: character_shown, text_event, typing_finished, text_hidden.
• Accessibility: one motion_intensity value calms every movement for your options menu.
• Fast: 20 dialogue boxes with 1440 animated letters cost about 1.8 ms more per frame than plain text.
• Write your own effect in a few lines: the base class gives you the font size and a pivot to scale or rotate letters around their centre.

What is inside

• The addons/almios_text_fx folder: the TextFXLabel and TextFXDialogueBox nodes, the typewriter, the 12 entrances and the 22 effects, fully commented
• A demo project: a short conversation in a dialogue box with portraits and voices, and a gallery of every effect and entrance
• README with every tag, value, command and signal

Compatibility

Godot 4.3 and later (tested on 4.3 and 4.7). Forward+, Mobile and Compatibility renderers, desktop and web.

License

Use in unlimited personal and commercial projects. Please do not resell or redistribute the pack itself.

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