• Adobe After Effects

  Automatically center a layer

  Posted by Mike Brassee on August 12, 2020 at 10:29 am

  Hello,

  I’ve made a countdown timer in after effects.
  But because the with of the numbers isn’t the same across them all, the countdown changes length.
  Thus it looks like the countdown isn’t centered anymore.
  Is there a way to automatically center the countdown during it’s run?

  Mike Brassee replied 6 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Walter Soyka

  August 12, 2020 at 7:43 pm

  There are a few different ways to make a countdown. Which technique did you use?

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]
• 

  Mike Brassee

  August 13, 2020 at 7:51 am

  I’ve used the following code:

  rateOfSpeed=1;
clockStartTime = thisComp.layer("Timer Duration").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")*60;

  clockTimeNumber = Math.floor(clockStartTime - rateOfSpeed*time);

  function addZero(n) {
  return (n < 10) ? "0" + n : n;
  }

  minutes = Math.floor(clockTimeNumber/60);
  seconds = clockTimeNumber%60;

  if (clockStartTime > 0 && time < clockStartTime) {
addZero(minutes) + ":" + addZero(seconds);
} else {
"00:00";
}

  The problem however, is that my font doesn’t have the same with for all the characters.
  Therefor the countdown goes off center when counting down.
• 

  Walter Soyka

  August 13, 2020 at 1:12 pm

  Of course, you can use a mono-spaced font.

  If that won’t work for your design, I’d suggest using Numbers effect. Set it to Timecode, untick the “Proportional spacing” option, time-reverse the layer it to make it count down instead of count up, and mask off what you don’t need.

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]
• 

  Mike Brassee

  August 17, 2020 at 7:35 am

  Hi Walter,

  This worked great!
  Thanks!

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up