Making a count down but not with Time Code…

[Michael Szalapski]

You should be able to use the numbers effect. Now, there may be a limitation on the upper limits, but a couple different copies of it with expressions in place should do the trick.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Greg Burke]

Number effects? is it built into Cs5.5? A filter? Could you give me a bit more detail please. 🙂

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http://www.gregburkepost.com

[Paul Roper]

It’s under:
Effect > Text > Numbers

Just apply it to a solid. In the effect controls, set the ‘Type’ to number, then keyframe the ‘Value/Offset/Random’ number. But this only goes up to 30,000, so you’ll need to do some kinda layer duplication to get the effect you need.

or….(much better)….

Create a new empty text layer (double-click the text T icon).
Add a slider control to it (Effect > Expression controls > slider). Click the twirly arrow to show the Slider Control in the Effects part of the timeline.
Open the Text twirly arrow to reveal the Source Text keyframe stopwatch. Option-click it to apply an expression. Pickwhip from the Source Text to the Slider you’ve just created.

You can now keyframe the slider, and the text will show the amount. But you can only make your slider go up to 1 million, so if you edit the expression in the source text from:

effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”)

to

effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”)*1000

you can then set your slider to 307006.55 to make the number display your gargantuan 307006550. It won’t have the commas, though. To display “1”, you’ll have to set your slider to 0.001.

Make sure you use a monospaced font – it will look much better when animating up/down.

– Paul

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

If you’re not averse to Expressions, then I suggest that you use the Text Tool. A search in the COW’s AE Expressions forum should provide a viable solution for you.

HTH
RoRK

Intensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer

[Greg Burke]

Ya…thanks but its not working, its giving me a random number and a bunch of extra numbers i dont want while i key frame down Just need a simple count down starting at
300000000 down

I wear many hats.
http://www.gregburkepost.com

[Paul Roper]

Did you try my method with the expressions? That wouldn’t give you random numbers. It will give you exactly what you need.