[Colin Braley]

I would just make a single slider, link the expression on one layer to it and then select Edit>Copy expression only. After that select all the layers which you want to have the same expression and click paste.
~Colin Braley

[Colin Braley]

I would just make a single slider, link the expression on one layer to it and then select Edit>Copy expression only. After that select all the layers which you want to have the same expression and click paste.
~Colin Braley

[Colin Braley]

If you want AE to use more than 2GB of RAM search the archives (or google) for “3GB Switch.” It’s a line you add to you boot.ini file to get certain applications to recognize 3GB of RAM under Windows XP Pro. I would recoomend researching it some more before you use it. If you don’t want to do this, you can use Windows XP 64 bit editiion; I’ve heard AE works well and recognizes 4GB using this OS but I have never used it. For more info on RAM related stuff search the archives for posts by “Steve Forde” (President of Gridiron software, creators of Nucleo). Steve has posted many very informative posts regarding RAM in AE. One of the best can be found here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=867951

~Colin

[Colin Braley]

AE is not like Premiere or Final Cut where you can just preview your whole timeline. To get a whole 7 min comp to RAM Preview your gonna need a LOT more RAM. Try opening up your comp settings and lowering the resolution to preview a longer duration.
~Colin

[Colin Braley]

Well a few people have created After Effects scripts for tracking masks (search the archives for more info) I don’t think in this case you will need to apply tracking data to a mask. Instead, I would do as follows:
-Track the eye
-Create a solid and mask out where the eye is on this solid (Set mask mode to add)
-Duplicate the footage with the person who was tracked and place the solid layer directly above it and set the solid layer’s track matte to “Alpha matte”
-Apply the tracking data from the eye to the solid layer
-Now do your color corrections on the duplicated footage layer, and the only area affected will be the eye.

~Colin

[Colin Braley]

Try his expression for z-rotation:

//Begin expression
segMin = .3; //minimum segment duration
segMax = .7; //maximum segment duration
//–
list = [0, 90, 180, 360];
minVal = 0;
maxVal = 3;
//–
end = 0;
j = 0;
while ( time >= end){
j += 1;
seedRandom(j,true);
start = end;
end += random(segMin,segMax);
}
endVal = list[Math.round( random(minVal,maxVal))];
seedRandom(j-1,true);
dummy=random(); //this is a throw-away value
startVal = list[ Math.round(random(minVal,maxVal))];
ease(time,start,end,startVal,endVal)
//–end expression

I just took a sample from Dan’s site, http://www.motionscript.com and modified it a bit. And as for your question asking wheteher there are any books on javascript for AE, the answer is no. (Well at least not until someone can convince Dan Ebberts to write one) If you want some websites to learn expressions/scripting from just search the archives and you can find some links.
~Colin

~Colin Braley

[Colin Braley]

Try his expression for z-rotation:

//Begin expression
segMin = .3; //minimum segment duration
segMax = .7; //maximum segment duration
//–
list = [0, 90, 180, 360];
minVal = 0;
maxVal = 3;
//–
end = 0;
j = 0;
while ( time >= end){
j += 1;
seedRandom(j,true);
start = end;
end += random(segMin,segMax);
}
endVal = list[Math.round( random(minVal,maxVal))];
seedRandom(j-1,true);
dummy=random(); //this is a throw-away value
startVal = list[ Math.round(random(minVal,maxVal))];
ease(time,start,end,startVal,endVal)
//–end expression

I just took a sample from Dan’s site, http://www.motionscript.com and modified it a bit. And as for your question asking wheteher there are any books on javascript for AE, the answer is no. (Well at least not until someone can convince Dan Ebberts to write one) If you want some websites to learn expressions/scripting from just search the archives and you can find some links.
~Colin

~Colin Braley

[Colin Braley]

Sam,
you made me notice I did make a mistake in my second expression. I looked back at the second expression I posted and you’re right changing “maxBlur” won’t do anything. Change “amp” around to change the amount of blur. I had started the second expression using the first as a guide, and I guess I just forgot to delete the “maxBlur” variable. Think of the second expression like this: blur will go up and down from 0 to amp over and over again. How fast the layer is moving controls how quickly the blur will go up and down. I like your idea of measutring the speed of a point to get mph, neat idea. And also, If you didvide by 100 instead of multiplying by .01 I think your expression will behave the same. A “Divide by zero error” occurs anytime the denominator of a fraction is zero.
~Colin

[Colin Braley]

Sam,
you made me notice I did make a mistake in my second expression. I looked back at the second expression I posted and you’re right changing “maxBlur” won’t do anything. Change “amp” around to change the amount of blur. I had started the second expression using the first as a guide, and I guess I just forgot to delete the “maxBlur” variable. Think of the second expression like this: blur will go up and down from 0 to amp over and over again. How fast the layer is moving controls how quickly the blur will go up and down. I like your idea of measutring the speed of a point to get mph, neat idea. And also, If you didvide by 100 instead of multiplying by .01 I think your expression will behave the same. A “Divide by zero error” occurs anytime the denominator of a fraction is zero.
~Colin

[Colin Braley]

Sam,
The first expression does work, and while it is not as elegant as your solution, I find it is easier to use. Instead of having the user adjust, “blurFactor” over and over again until their image has the right amount of blur, they can explicitly specify the maximum amount of blur they want using “maxBlur.” The second expression was not meant to simply adjust blur as a funtion of speed. Steve Roberts posted and said it would be possible to use the first expression to make something interesting, so I used the speed of the layer to drive the frequency of a sine wave which controlled the blur.
~Colin