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Activity Forums Adobe After Effects Numbers in a grid

  • Numbers in a grid

    Posted by Antony Buonomo on March 5, 2009 at 12:15 pm

    Can anyone think of a quick way to generate a grid of numbers? I have made an image of a game board and the client now wants each square to be numbered. The numbers need to be in the same place in every square and I want the flexibility of being able to change font and size easily. I know there is a Text Anarchy plug-in but I would rather not buy that for this little job and I really don’t want to do this the long way…

    Cheers

    A

    Vertigo Productions
    https://www.vertigo.co.uk

    Mark Creasy replied 7 years, 7 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Mike Park

    March 5, 2009 at 4:57 pm

    do the numbers have to be in a certain order? I think one of the built in particle systems should be able to to this for you fairly easily. I would use Trapcode’s Particular myself, just because I know how to use it quickly.

  • Mike Park

    March 5, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    here is an old tutorial, which should point you in the right direction with particle playground:
    https://www.toolfarm.com/tutorials/rndmnbrs.html

  • Antony Buonomo

    March 6, 2009 at 9:31 am

    Thanks guys, trying out those suggestions…

    Also, the client seems to be considering springing for the plug-in!

    A

    Vertigo Productions
    https://www.vertigo.co.uk

  • Mark Creasy

    October 9, 2018 at 3:12 pm

    Hi there. Here’s how I just did it using Trapcode Form.
    Create your particle: I made a 18px by 30px composition with one number in the middle, expanding its layer properties and keyframing the source every 4 frames over two seconds so it says 9, 3, 5, 0, 2, 8, 4, et cetera. Playback that comp to make sure it flows right.
    Pre-compose that particle composition inside a fresh composition, and turn it off.
    Make a solid, put the Form effect on it.
    For my purposes, I changed the number of particles in Z to zero since I just want a grid and not a cube.
    I changed the “z” position (last out of the 3 Position numbers) to bring them closer to the camera.
    Change Particle to “Textured Polygon”, then under Texture choose Layer (this is my Numbers composition turned off), and “Random – Loop”.
    Playback should now be a field of numbers all playing back randomly.
    Change the particles in X and Y to make them more or less dense.

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