Curves Equations

[Pedro Amaral]

Hi Dave,

I’d like to provide the exact animation data to the developers team.
To match the exact curves that I am using in my animations they need the equations for it.

[Kevin Camp]

you can save the curve data from the effect controls palette… not sure if the equation they need is in there, but you could give that a try — it makes sense that it would be, but i don’t know if the data will be the way they would expect it.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Brian Charles]

If the curves in question are position or rotation keyframe data from the graph editor (and not the Curves effect) I think the only option is to make a record of the coordinates frame-by-frame. Tedious no doubt, but frame accurate.

[Kevin Camp]

doh!

no doubt pedro was asking for a animation curve… an easy way to record each keyframe is to add an expression to the property, keeping the default expression, then choose animation>keyframe assistant>convert expression to keyframes.

then you can select those keyframes and copy/paste them into a text file.

it won’t give you a calculation, but they may be able to use the keyframe data to match the animation you have in ae.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Pedro Amaral]

Hi Brian,

Yes, most of the animations are for Position and Scale, and in a few cases related with one or another effect.
It is exactly the curves from the graph editor that I need to provide.

From what I’ve been told there are pre-made equations for a couple curves (I suppose it will be something like in this site https://easings.net) and by sending them a print screen of my AE curves they have been able to simulate the same animation based on this pre-made equations which made things a lot easier.

The problem, I think, comes when the curves are a bit more complex or need to match exactly what I am doing in AE.

[Pedro Amaral]

Hey Kevin,

Thanks for your replies, I was not that clear in my question.

Indeed it was related with the curves in the graph editor.
I will try that, getting the keyframe data and show them to see if they can do anything with it, although I have a feeling they are expecting the whole recipe for the magic.

I’ve found this thread ( https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/227/11974 ) while looking for answers here in Creative cow, its not exactly what I am looking for but it is damn interesting.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions

[Walter Soyka]

Pedro, animation curves are not specified by equations; they are Bezier curves [link].

To see how a Bezier curve is drawn according to its control points and handles, check out these animations on Wikipedia [link].

You can extract the data necessary to recreate this via Ae’s scripting, but Kevin’s solution of baking the animation down to keyframes may be the simplest.

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

[Pedro Amaral]

Hi Walter,

Thank you so much for your reply and the useful links.

I´m not big of a mathematician and know very little of coding, but I suppose they needed what they called as equations, to build the exact bezier curves I had on my animations as I don´t think they can simply draw them, they need to use their values in order to calculate and build them through the code.

I did sent them the keyframe information as suggested above but in the end they decided not to go into so much detail so they kind of tricked it and matched the animations by eye.

Anyway, thanks for the links, it’s useful to understand how these things are built.