Jason Abbott wrote a good tutorial on this, found on the DMN and Sundance Site. It can be done with Spicemaster or on your own, his tutorial explains it both ways.
Sundance Media Group help
You'll need to register, but it's free.

. . but the graphics package needs a Vector gradient Path type of function. Having a gradient in just one direction stops you from "doubling" back on yourself; easily placing DOTS above "i" or easily crossing "t". Tried this in PsP7 - but you only get Gradient Paths in one direction. So the reveal ONLY happens in one direction. PsP8, I understand, has this function. Thoroughly Check it out first before you buy - yeah?

Grazie

Another "seat of the pants" way:

Start with a graphic of the whole title. Call this "Title999"
Erase a little bit off the end. Save As Title 998
Erase a bit more. Save as Title 997

- you get the idea - input into Vegas as a still image sequence....

Back "in the day" they had to draw it on paper a little bit at a time and photograph it frame by frame.
...And cuts were done with a razor blade.
...And you don't even want to know what they had to do for a fade or dissolve.

For all the dramas it takes doing some things on a PC it's sometimes quicker to do it the 'old fashion' way.

I needed some titles done in Chinese, just got my wife's friend who is pretty good at it to write it with a thick pen, the scanned it and cleaned it up in PS. Looked great in the cinema. One thing I'll give the Asian language, the text lends itself tosome wonderful manipulation.

I'm going to buy a copy of NJStar, fairly expensive to get all the fonts but they look really great in videos and I cannot begrudge them the money, whoever drew those 10,000s of characters and catalogued them deserves something.

Herbert Zettl's original book "television production handbook" shows how to do this by hand. It's a ton of work...no doubt. Plus, it takes talent.
I learn a lot from those old books...

Easiest way is to get one of those USB writing Tablets, then just record the screen with something like CamStudio or a similar program while you write the signature.

Yes, you can do this with PSP8. Have a look at http://www.mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=182077&Page=0
where I described how to do it the last time this question came up.

Mark

Thank you for all help and suggestions. FINALLY got it to work using PS7 and VV4
WITHOUT SPICE. Used red text so it would be visible against the black background in VV4.
Next step: Can I get the same handwriting effect with black text against a white (or preferably transparent) background so it will overlay on top of a lower background track?
Jay