-
Create new random number each time it plays?
I’m trying to generate a random number each time the preview plays, but can’t seem to find a way to. Is there anything I can hook into in the expressions that will give me a different random number at frame zero each time?
For example, maybe hooking into the current system time?Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezedesign.com -
3 Replies
-
I’m not aware of a reliable way to do it. You can use something like this to get the current milliseconds since 1970:
d = new Date(Date(0));
d.getTime()So in theory, you could use that as a random seed like this:
d = new Date(Date(0));
seedRandom(d.getTime(),true);The problem is that the cache doesn’t get invalidated by this so to get it to actually change you have to purge the cache. On top of that, there’s no way to restrict it to happening only at the first frame, so your random numbers won’t be consistent througout the preview.
Dan
-
Hmmm. Bummer. Yeah, I can’t get it to do anything refreshable. I’ve got a series of Particular emitters flying in unison, so as a stop-gap, I’ve linked all their Random Seed values to an external RefreshCache slider. Now I just change that slider value to refresh Particular. Not elegant, but it works.
Thanks for checking.
Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezedesign.com -
Oh, just to be clear, they all link to the slider multiplied by their index to keep their numbers unique.
i.e: thisComp.layer(“control”).effect(“RefreshCache”)(“Slider”)*index;
Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezedesign.com
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up