Year Countdown on keyframes expression (With individual digits NOT text layer based)

Adobe After Effects Expressions

Year Countdown on keyframes expression (With individual digits NOT text layer based)

Posted by Clive Lythgoe on September 28, 2017 at 5:00 am

I’ve created a countdown clock from 2017 to 1980 that triggers on keyframes.
I have a 10 frame comp for each digit which runs from 0 to 9 (4 comps in total).
These are then placed into a main comp.
Then I have a slider control which is driving the change for each digit/related comp based up me entering the keyframes for each year..
Main comp and digit comps are all 60FPS
I’m an expression beginner and used expressions given in a tutorial (each expression on a time remap for each digit comp).

However, something is not right as the year and decade digits jump from 5 to 3, missing out the four for example.
I think the problem is the above expressions are based on second calculations for a time not year countdown.

Have trawled through forum/google but can’t seem to find a solution.
Would really appreciate help I’m up against a tight deadline.
Thanks for a great community, my first post but this forum has helped me immensely.

Clive.

For year digit thisComp.layer("Time Slider").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")%10*thisComp.frameDuration
For decade of years digit thisComp.layer("Time Slider").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")/10%10*thisComp.frameDuration For century digit thisComp.layer("Time Slider").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")/100%10*thisComp.frameDuration
For millenium digit thisComp.layer("Time Slider").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")/1000%10*thisComp.frameDuration

Clive Lythgoe replied 8 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
2 Replies

Liran Tabib
September 28, 2017 at 4:03 pm

Hi Clive
Your technique resembles a tutorial i’ve recorded a while ago, on a digital clock/timer.

I believe the issue you are describing in the technique is caused by the high frame rate and the value interpolation of time remap, but it can be solved easily with these steps:
1. Open the digits comp.
2. Create an adjustment layer and place it above all the digits layer.
3. Place the “Posterize time“effect on the adjustment layer.
4. Set the effect’s Frame Rate value to the comp’s value (in your case it’s 60).

This fix should work, but if not I have another fix in my sleeve.

If you plan to make more numbers animations in the future I highly recommend checking our Counter and Time Presets.

Cheers!

Liran Tabib
http://www.vdodna.com
Clive Lythgoe
October 7, 2017 at 10:26 am

Thanks Liran.

Apologies for the delay in responding (I was up against tight deadline so ended up keyframing by hand) then got your solution and yes it was based on the tutorial you mentioned.

It works well apart from when it counts from 2000 to 1999 where it displays 2999.
Any thoughts?

Cheers
Clive

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