Scripting random color bars expression?

[wyclef chron]

Hi, I am interested in creating some vertical color bars of varying widths, opacity, color moving horizontally across the screen back and forth and varying speeds. I could manually animate this, but it feels a bit cumbersome and would like something that could maybe be reproduced across different compositions. Wondering if anyone has seen an example of something like this, or has a clue how to script something of this nature.

[Dan Ebberts]

To get you started, create a Shape Layer (Layer > New > Shape Layer). Add a Rectangle and a Fill.

Add this expression to the Rectangle’s Size property:

minWidth = 5;
maxWidth = 25;
seedRandom(index,true);
[random(minWidth,maxWidth),thisComp.height]

Add this expression to the Fill Color:

minVal = [.5,.5,.5,1];
maxVal = [1,1,1,1];
seedRandom(index,true);
random(minVal,maxVal)

Add this expression to the Layer’s Position:

minFreq = .25;
maxFreq = .75;
seedRandom(index,true);
freq = random(minFreq,maxFreq);
amp = thisComp.width/2;
w = wiggle(freq,amp);
[w[0],value[1]]

Add this expression to the Layer’s Opacity:

minVal = 25;
maxVal = 100;
seedRandom(index,true);
random(minVal,maxVal)

Duplicate the layer a bunch of times.

[wyclef chron]

Thanks for this! Will see what I can do and circle back.