Blinking Effect for Audio Avatars

[Dan Ebberts]

Play with this (it should get you close):

minAudio = 0;
maxAudio = 20;
minSize = 10;
maxSize = 100;
a = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”);
s = linear(a,minAudio,maxAudio,maxSize,minSize);
[value[0],s]

Dan

[Lewis Snook]

You sir are a legend, this code works great. I may need to fiddle with the numbers to try and make it a little less extreme, but no, this can work!

[Lewis Snook]

Since you very helpfully gave me the starting point to mastering my blinking effect, I was wondering if you could help with the final touches to perfecting it.

The code you gave me was an excellent starting point, but I have since thought of a better way, but I don’t know how (since at the moment the face looks like it is sneezing when it talks)

So here’s what I have done.

Instead of having one layer with your code attached, there are two layers (two black circles – the eyballs)

The top layer has it’s opacity synced with the Audio with this expression:

minAudio = 0;
maxAudio = 20;
minValue = 0;
maxValue = 100;
a = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”);
s = linear(a,minAudio,maxAudio,maxValue,minValue);

And the bottom layer has this code linked with the size and the audio:

minAudio = 0;
maxAudio = 20;
minSize = 10;
maxSize = 100;
a = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”);
s = linear(a,minAudio,maxAudio,maxSize,minSize);
[value[0],s]

So here’s how I hope you can help. Currently what happens is the opacity of the top black circle fades in line with the audio (more volume = more fade); and the lower black circle does the ordinary blinking that your code was designed for ( shrinking the size in line with the audio). There is one more addition I wish to make.

For the top layer

I want to add a randomiser. So that the top layer’s expression is opperated by chance. E.g. When the volume is louder, the expression has a X% chance of executing. This is to stop the reaction everytime audio is detected, else as I said, it looks like the face is sneezing when it talks. I am aware of the basic code for randomisers (e.g. the “Seed” function, but I do not know how to apply it to the existing expression. I hope all this makes sense since it’s the final piece of this puzzle, and then I will be happy with my effect.

Thanks, and if you need any more clarity I will try and offer it.

[Dan Ebberts]

It’s tricky. I’m assuming the louder audio lasts for more than one frame, so the expression needs to know if the current peak is being ignored or processed, but there’s no way to pass data from frame to frame. If it were me, I’d probably implement a beat counter (https://motionscript.com/design-guide/audio-count.html) and use the count as the random seed to determine if the current beat is being processed or ignored. A bit of work, but do-able.

Dan

[Lewis Snook]

I just tried implementing the expression and nothing that I can see happened.

That said; this expression found on the same site seems to have the right basis, it’s just lacking the “random” element as it’s executed every few seconds in segments. Is there a way I can set the segment to be random?

Here is the code:

segMin = .3; //minimum segment duration
segMax = .7; //maximum segment duration
minVal = [0.1*thisComp.width, 0.1*thisComp.height];
maxVal = [0.9*thisComp.width, 0.9*thisComp.height];

end = 0;
j = 0;
while ( time >= end){
j += 1;
seedRandom(j,true);
start = end;
end += random(segMin,segMax);
}
endVal = random(minVal,maxVal);
seedRandom(j-1,true);
dummy=random(); //this is a throw-away value
startVal = random(minVal,maxVal);
ease(time,start,end,startVal,endVal)

[Dan Ebberts]

This expressions is set up to ramp to random values across random durations. It changes things if you’re willing to disconnect the animation from the audio.

Dan