• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  Need help with simple timer

  Posted by Dreman on September 19, 2007 at 6:20 am

  I have a very simple time expression for a 30 sec counter, that works perfectly fine, but would like to have numbers below 10, to have a 0 in front, 10, 09, 08, 07 etc. I’m not a math guy and know even less about javascript. This whole expression thing is brand new to me, but clearly very powerful looking at some examples. Any help would be appreciated. This is what I have right now:

  Math.round
  (31-time)

  I was also wondering if anyone can recommend an AE expression book or website that offers entry level help for rookie’s like myself.

  Thanks
  Dre

  Dreman replied 19 years ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Mike Clasby

  September 19, 2007 at 8:41 am

  I really like Dan’s Universal Counter, very flexible.

  https://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/up-down-clock.html

  His expression, modified for your needs (as I read them) would be this (on Source Text):

  rate = -1;
  clockStart =30;

  function padZero(n){
  if (n < 10) return "0" + n else return "" + n } clockTime = clockStart + rate*(time - inPoint); if (clockTime < 0){ sign = "-"; clockTime = -clockTime; }else{ sign = ""; } t = Math.floor(clockTime); hr = Math.floor(t/3600); min = Math.floor((t%3600)/60); sec = Math.floor(t%60); ms = clockTime.toFixed(3).substr(-3); sign + padZero(sec) Lines 1, 2 and 22 are different. See the page for extensive explanation. Dan's page is a great place, especially the section "Mastering Expressions" for begiining. https://www.motionscript.com/

  And this is a very good introduction:

  https://www.jjgifford.com/expressions/
• 

  Dreman

  September 19, 2007 at 4:02 pm

  This is awesome. Exactly what I was looking for and motionsctipt.com looks like the answer as well. I can’t tell you have many times I’ve Googled and could not find that site via regular search. So thanks again.

  Really appreciate your time

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