• Adobe After Effects

  How to create a 15-minute countdown in After Effects?

  Posted by Thomas Reimer on July 6, 2015 at 6:37 pm

  Hi there,

  I’m fairly new to after effects, and I can’t seem to find a tutorial online to help me create a 15 minute countdown timer in after effects. Any help would be appreciated.

  Thanks!

  Thomas

  Walter Soyka replied 4 years, 10 months ago 5 Members · 6 Replies
• 6 Replies

• 

  John Cuevas

  July 6, 2015 at 8:16 pm

  I did a search in the expressions forum and found this countdown timer. Just create a comp 15 minute long. Press “cntl+alt+shift+T” to create a text layer. Copy the entire expression written below. Twirl open the text and “alt + click” the source text stop watch to enable expressions, then paste expression below into the box. Lastly, make sure the text is right justified.

  rate = -1;
clockStart = 900;

  function padZero(n){
if (n < 10) return "0" + n else return "" + n } clockTime = Math.max(clockStart + rate*(time - inPoint),0); t = Math.floor(clockTime); min = Math.floor((t%3600)/60); sec = Math.floor(t%60); min + ":" + padZero(sec)

  Johnny Cuevas, Editor
  ThinkCK

  "I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work."
  ---THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.
• 

  Thomas Reimer

  July 7, 2015 at 12:19 pm

  Thank you so much! I have been searching for this expression but finally have found it. Thanks!
• 

  Trevor Morgan

  August 26, 2021 at 8:46 pm

  Same issue here. Looking to make the 15:00min countdown timer… But in AE 2021 the expression isn’t working.

  Any tips?

  Thanks!
• 

  Walter Soyka

  August 26, 2021 at 9:50 pm

  Ae updated its Javascript engine a few releases ago, and that came with stricter enforcement of curly braces around blocks in if/else statements.

  Here’s the code above, updated for recent releases of Ae:

  rate = -1;
  clockStart = 900;
  function padZero(n) {
      if (n < 10)
          return "0" + n;
  	else {
              return "" + n;
  	}
  }
  clockTime = Math.max(clockStart + rate * (time - inPoint), 0);
  t = Math.floor(clockTime);
  min = Math.floor((t % 3600) / 60);
  sec = Math.floor(t % 60);
  min + ":" + padZero(sec)
• 

  Chip Hess

  August 31, 2021 at 3:38 pm

  This is great. Now if we would want to change the duration to something less or greater than 15 minutes, what would we change? Just the Comp length?
• 

  Walter Soyka

  August 31, 2021 at 4:02 pm

  Change the clockStart variable, which determines the starting point for the countdown timer in seconds. 900 seconds = 15 minutes * 60 seconds/minute.

  If you wanted a 5 minute countdown, you could do this:

  clockStart = 5 * 60;

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