Odometer expressions

[Dylan Reeve]

I had a look at the comp.

The problems two-fold — it’s designed clearly for only three digits, although that can be changed, but it requires changing masks on a number of layers.

Second is that it is designed to count down, not up. And the way it works means that when you get to 162.0 you’re actually going to end up with a very weird and unreadable number, because the 1 will be rotated .6 of the way to 2, the 6 will be rotated .2 of the way to 7. But the 2 and the 0 should be okay.

Here are the expressions for the Offset effects of the four number layers (if you add another one):

Digit 1: [50, -40+(-1)*this_comp.layer(“SLIDER”).effect(“Slider Control”).param(“Slider”), this_comp.layer(“SLIDER”).effect(“Slider Control”).param(“Slider”)]

Digit 2: [50, -40+(-10)*this_comp.layer(“SLIDER”).effect(“Slider Control”).param(“Slider”), this_comp.layer(“SLIDER”).effect(“Slider Control”).param(“Slider”)]

Digit 3: [50, -40+(-100)*this_comp.layer(“SLIDER”).effect(“Slider Control”).param(“Slider”), this_comp.layer(“SLIDER”).effect(“Slider Control”).param(“Slider”)]

Digit 4: [50, -40+(-1000)*this_comp.layer(“SLIDER”).effect(“Slider Control”).param(“Slider”), this_comp.layer(“SLIDER”).effect(“Slider Control”).param(“Slider”)]

What happens with a real odometer (at least the one on my motorbike) is that the numbers don’t tick over until the one to their right reaches 9. That shouldn’t be too hard to achieve with these expressions, but I don’t think it would look as nice in the animation.

Maybe there is a nicer way you can cheat it? Or someone else can think of a better way of animating them so you’ll end up with a readable number at the end.

[Doug]

I did find a cheat..I did away with the expressions all-together. I simply changed the offset paramater for each number. You would think that it was your odometer on your motorcycle. I would like to thank you for the time that you put into the expression. After the Tom Jones concert (if it wasn’t free i would be home watching “the Daily show”) I might put your work too work and see what comes out of it. Thanks a million.
Hail the Cow!
Doug

[Dylan Reeve]

It’s not my expression – my work consisted of adding another zero to the existing expression, and looking at the way the numbers moved.

I love The Daily Show.