‘regaining control’

[Antony Buonomo]

I guess I am asking; how do you turn off an expression?

[Dan Ebberts]

If you want to cut it off at a specific time, say 10 seconds, you could do this:

if (time < 10){ thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider")*1.2 }else{ value } Dan

[Antony Buonomo]

Thanks Dan, just looking at your site now!

I’m trying to work out how to add the expression to an Expression Control-Slider and then keyframe that, but I’m getting muddled. If I have an expression for Warp deformation on a layer, what gets linked to what? I have seen tutorials on the Cow, but can’t find the exact piece of info at the moment…

[Dan Ebberts]

Just replace the warp effect expression you had with the one I suggested. Or am I missing something?

Dan

[Antony Buonomo]

I think I am just being unclear or stupid or both.

I want to ‘tail-off’ the influence of the expression rather than end it specifically at a given frame. I guess this means keyframes, but I can’t work out how to create a slider that controls the audio and still use it in the Warp expression.

I have a letter ‘o’ pre-composed. On that layer I have a Warp effect. A couple of those parameters are driven by an audio layer. Obviously, as the audio is playing the letter is deformed. Towards the end of the animation I want to bring the rest of the word in – the word to which the letter ‘o’ is the beginning. However, because of the influence of the audio layer on that single letter, the word looks weird. I want all the Warp parameters to be zero by the time the rest of the word comes in, but I don’t want it to be a sudden jump; I want to be able to ease those values into zero over a few frames.

I thought I could do it simply with an expression control slider but I have a feeling I have to create a variable first…?

Thanks for hanging in there!

A

PS I can send the project if you think it would be clearer.

[Dan Ebberts]

You certainly could do it with a keyframed slider, but if you know when you want it to happen, something like this should work as well (not tested – but it should be close):

var beginFade = 10;
var fadeTime = 0.2;
var warpVal = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”)*1.2;
var endVal = 0;
ease(time,beginFade,beginFade+fadeTime,warpVal,endVal)

Dan

[Antony Buonomo]

Dan

As I have a number of effects I would really like to do it via a keyframed slider rather than a hardwired time. Could you please point me towards a correct solution or tutorial using this method?

As you can see from the image, to get the letter back to ‘normal’, Warp (Bend, Hor & Ver) should all be zero and Transform scale height should be 100. As I can’t divide by zero I don’t know how to get the Bend value to zero and so that expression is broken.

Appreciate any comments.

A

A

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

[Antony Buonomo]

whoops… Image at
https://www.vertigo.co.uk/cow/expression_op.jpg