[Colin Braley]

Heres how I learned AE:
-did almost all the Cow tutorials
-motionscript.com for expressions
-Chris and Trish Meyer’s books
-The AE manual

I probably learned the most from the last one.
~Colin

[Colin Braley]

Nice tutorial….I like the idea of creating the ink with the CC particle system it works well.
~Colin

[Colin Braley]

All you need to do is add this expression to the XY Emitter Position property:

//Begin Expression
amp = 200; // change this to adjust overall size
startPos = [360 , 270]; //adjust this to move infinity sign
freq = 5; // adjust to make drawing of sign faster
//–
x = amp * Math.sin( time * freq);
y = amp * Math.sin( time * 2 * freq);
[x , y] + startPos
//End expression

It might be helpful to link things like startPos and freq to sliders so you can adjust them more easily.

~Colin

[Colin Braley]

I like the new forum, great idea.
~Colin Braley

[Colin Braley]

To essentially “cut a hole” through all the layers below a certain layer in a comp just draw a mask on a layer, and change its blend mode to “stencil alpha.” If you want to invert the mask use “silhouette alpha.” This works as if the mask was applied to all the layers below the layer it is applied to. I’m also sure there are a million other ways to do this, and this one might not be the best.
~Colin

[Colin Braley]

Just make sure the position value of your last keyframe is equal to that of your first keyframe. Then apply the following expression:

loopOut(“cycle”)

~Colin

[Colin Braley]

Just make sure the position value of your last keyframe is equal to that of your first keyframe. Then apply the following expression:

loopOut(“cycle”)

~Colin

[Colin Braley]

Fade in only…

fadeTime = 10;//frames
linear( time, inPoint, inPoint + framesToTime( fadeTime ), 0 , 100);

Fade out only…

fadeTime = 10;//frames
linear( time, outPoint – framesToTime( fadeTime ), outPoint, 100 , 0);

or if you want to be able to do fade in, fade out, or both within one expression just change the values of fadeIn and fadeOut in the following expression…

//–
fadeTime = 10; //frames
fadeIn = true;
fadeOut = false;
//–
if ( ! fadeIn && ! fadeOut )
{
100
}else if ( fadeIn && ! fadeOut) {
linear( time, inPoint, inPoint + framesToTime( fadeTime ), 0 , 100);
}else if ( fadeOut && ! fadeIn ) {
linear( time, outPoint – framesToTime( fadeTime ), outPoint, 100 , 0);
}
else{
if( time > this.inPoint + framesToTime( fadeTime ) )
linear( time, outPoint – framesToTime( fadeTime ), outPoint, 100 , 0);
else
linear( time, inPoint, inPoint + framesToTime( fadeTime ), 0 , 100);

}

Enjoy

~Colin

[Colin Braley]

Fade in only…

fadeTime = 10;//frames
linear( time, inPoint, inPoint + framesToTime( fadeTime ), 0 , 100);

Fade out only…

fadeTime = 10;//frames
linear( time, outPoint – framesToTime( fadeTime ), outPoint, 100 , 0);

or if you want to be able to do fade in, fade out, or both within one expression just change the values of fadeIn and fadeOut in the following expression…

//–
fadeTime = 10; //frames
fadeIn = true;
fadeOut = false;
//–
if ( ! fadeIn && ! fadeOut )
{
100
}else if ( fadeIn && ! fadeOut) {
linear( time, inPoint, inPoint + framesToTime( fadeTime ), 0 , 100);
}else if ( fadeOut && ! fadeIn ) {
linear( time, outPoint – framesToTime( fadeTime ), outPoint, 100 , 0);
}
else{
if( time > this.inPoint + framesToTime( fadeTime ) )
linear( time, outPoint – framesToTime( fadeTime ), outPoint, 100 , 0);
else
linear( time, inPoint, inPoint + framesToTime( fadeTime ), 0 , 100);

}

Enjoy

~Colin

[Colin Braley]

Give me some more specific info on what you are trying to do and I might be able to help you out. If you are doing very, very basic XML parsing you can do this with AE Scripting by just writing some javascript. However, if you need to do in depth parsing you will need your AE script to call an external application or program (created by you) in a language like C++ or Java, have this app do the parsing using some kind of built in XML parsing library, and then send this information back to your AE script. The former solution would be a lot of work, but it is definetly feasable if you have some programming experience.
~Colin