[Dan Ebberts]

The minSeg expression is supposed to be applied to a slider. What property did you apply it to?

[Dan Ebberts]

It will be tricky. First, you’ll have to figure out how to identify that a turn is happening. Then, as explained in the article, to adjust the speed, you’ll have to manipulate the 5th wiggle parameter (time). Also, if the ant actually stops at some point, it will probably mess up your auto orientation.

[Dan Ebberts]

Hmmm. Ok. Since there’s a random component, it sounds like you need the randomizing part in a separate expression with the result “published” for both the flash and sound expressions to use. I’m still not clear on how you have this set up, so I’m going to describe how I’d do this for one flash layer and one sound layer. I’d create a null layer named “Control”, add a slider to it, and add this expression to the slider:

minSeg = 2.0;
maxSeg = 5.0;
seedRandom(index,true)
segStartTime = -random(minSeg,maxSeg);
segEndTime = segStartTime;
i = 1;
while (time >= segEndTime){
i += 1;
seedRandom(i,true);
segStartTime = segEndTime;
segEndTime = segEndTime + random(minSeg,maxSeg);
}
segStartTime

This calculates and publishes the randomized segStartTime. Then your flash expression becomes:

blinkDur = .25;
fadeTime = .1;
segStartTime = thisComp.layer("Control").effect("Slider Control")("Slider");
if (time < segStartTime + blinkDur/2)
easeOut(time,segStartTime,segStartTime+fadeTime,0,100)
else
easeIn(time,segStartTime+blinkDur-fadeTime,segStartTime+blinkDur,100,0)

You would turn on time remapping for your sound, drag the right edge so the layer duration matches the comp, and add this time remapping expression:

segStartTime = thisComp.layer("Control").effect("Slider Control")("Slider");
Math.max(time - segStartTime, 0)

That should sync the sound to the flash.

Now you mention 1000+ entries and I’m not sure if that implies 1000+ control layers and 1000+ sound layers or not. If so, then maybe this isn’t of much help to you. I’m hoping you can adapt this to your situation somehow though.

[Dan Ebberts]

I’m not sure, but this might help:

http://www.motionscript.com/articles/speed-control.html#wiggle

[Dan Ebberts]

Which version of the expression are you using? If you have it set up to run periodically rather than randomly, there’s probably a simpler solution.

[Dan Ebberts]

Something like this maybe:

minH = 10;
h = thisComp.layer("NAME").sourceRectAtTime(time,false).height;
w = thisComp.layer("NAME").sourceRectAtTime(time,false).width;
[w,Math.max(h,minH)]

[Dan Ebberts]

It seems to work fine if you follow all the steps described by Andrei. In what way is it not working for you?

[Dan Ebberts]

If you know the diameter (or can get it sourceRectAtTime()) it’s just

diameter*Math.PI

If it’s a path, you can approximate the length by using pointOnPath() to chop the path into a bunch of tiny pieces and summing their lengths together, like this:

path = content("Circle").content("Path 1").path;
numPts = 100;
accum = 0;
for (i = 0; i <= numPts; i++){
  if (i == 0){
    p1 = path.pointOnPath(0);
  }else{
    p0 = p1;
    p1 = path.pointOnPath(i/numPts);
    accum += length(p0,p1);
  }
}
accum

[Dan Ebberts]

I guess you could combine it with the offset element from your first expression:

t = thisComp.layer("template");
offset = (t.effect("offset")("Slider")/100)*(index -1);
tScale = .2;
m = thisComp.layer("control").marker;
tMin = m.key(1).time+offset;
tMax = m.key(2).time+offset;
if (time < (tMin+tMax)/2)
  s = linear(time,tMin,tMin+tScale,0,50)
else
  s = linear(time,tMax,tMax+tScale,50,0);
value + [s,s]

[Dan Ebberts]

I think something like this does what you’re describing, but it will affect each follower at the same time, so I don’t think it’s the solution you’re looking for.

tScale = .2;
m = thisComp.layer("control").marker;
tMin = m.key(1).time;
tMax = m.key(2).time;
if (time < (tMin+tMax)/2)
  s = linear(time,tMin,tMin+tScale,0,50)
else
  s = linear(time,tMax,tMax+tScale,50,0);
value + [s,s]