[Daniel Futerman]

Thanks for your reply Miguel, looks very interesting but to be honest, modifying that code would be beyond my level of knowledge in expressions.

What changes would you make to apply it to my scenario? Or is there a simpler expression I could use instead?

Thanks a lot!

After Effects Template & Photoshop Tutorials:
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[Daniel Futerman]

Hey Kevin & Dan,
As promised I’m back to share the final result of the project 🙂

After all the experiments I’ve done with expressions and key-frames, I’ve decided to go ahead with your suggestion Kevin and have multiple check-boxes on each null.

Here is an image of the interface:

So for example, if the null of the Logo’s Left Shadow is ON, the null of the Right Shadow should turn Off.
And actually, the shadow controllers where behaving quite well, but I had issues when trying to adjust the Length or Softness (blur) of the shadows when for some reason the shadow would also flip..

But the main issue happened with the shape controls. If for example you selected the circle shape and then ram previewed the animation, at certain seconds the shape would change back to a different shape. This was happening because something was affecting the check boxes and causing them to switch on/off with out the user interference. But every check I did suggested there was no consistency in the reason this happened and it seemed to happen randomly.

Obliviously for a template I couldn’t allow this to happen because I needed the user to have full control.

The original idea was to have each controller on a separate null and then create an automatic interface where if you click on one check box it deactivates the others – like in the image bellow, where the Logo shadows have 3 nulls attached to each shadow option. But I ended up having one null with 3 check boxes on each setting, like on the Shape shadow settings:

(In the shape control there are 4 check boxes..)

So any ways, I just wanted to say thank you again for your help in trying to solve this. In the end I think the idea Nick suggested was the best solution and I ended up doing it. If you’d like to see the final result and some more information about this project you can head over here, and if you want to have an inside look of the project you can have a look at the video tutorial 🙂

Thanks a lot for you help guys, I really do appreciate it!
Daniel

After Effects Template & Photoshop Tutorials:
https://www.amigo-productions.com

[Daniel Futerman]

Thanks Kevin that’s not a bad idea at all, but I really want to try and nail this one with the current layout 🙂 But if it continues to be so difficult I might have to try the 1 null method.

This project is really helping me explore the boundaries of AE and it’s crazy how many new things I’ve learned during the whole process! Anyways I’ll keep you posted once I have any further insights.

Thanks again, appreciate it.

After Effects Template & Photoshop Tutorials:
https://www.amigo-productions.com

[Daniel Futerman]

Hey Kevin, thanks for your idea – I think it does work better but now I’m getting some other weird behaviors.
Perhaps what I’m trying to accomplish isn’t possible with AE but I really want to believe it is..

The project is really quite complicate and has tons of different layers and effects being controlled by all these checkboxes, so it’s actually very difficult to ask for help considering you’re not familiar with the project. But I’ll do my best to try explain and ask the right questions which lead to my understanding of the problem.

So this is where I’m at – the 3 way checkbox controls (from the first post) and all the connected layers are working great.

What I’m trying to do now, is a 4 or actually a 5 way checkbox, with a slightly different format. If Z is True + One of the other checkboxes (A,B,C or D) is true, then only that specific checkbox (A,B,C or D)is True. And I got it working with the expression below.

There are several other layers in the project which are connected to these checkboxes, for example if B checkbox is True, then Comp “Circle” opacity is 100% otherwise 0% opacity. Up to here it’s all working great.

This is where it get’s strange.

There seems to be a different between the checkbox “On/Off” property when controlled manually, or controlled with the expression. This is what happens (I’ll use only A & B to explain):

A = On (Via Expression)
B = Off (Via Expression)

Result:
Specific comps in the project do not work properly, mainly issues to do with alpha channels.

A = On (Manually)
B = Off (Via Expression)

Result:
Everything works perfectly.

Conclusion:
When A is On using Expression, things don’t work
When A is On Manually, things Do work.

I wouldn’t have thought there should be a difference between the two scenarios.. but there is, and I have no idea why. And this is true also for all the other checkboxes. If they are on/off Manually everything works great, but if via expressions things go wrong.

Thanks for taking the time to read all of this and try to understand it, I really do appreciate your help.
Daniel

z=thisComp.layer("Shape on / off").effect("Turn Shape On or Off")("Checkbox")
a=effect("Checkbox Control")("Checkbox")

b=thisComp.layer("Circle").effect("Checkbox Control")("Checkbox")
c=thisComp.layer("Hexagon").effect("Checkbox Control")("Checkbox")
d=thisComp.layer("Box Rounded").effect("Checkbox Control")("Checkbox")

if ((z==true)&&(a==true)&&(b==false)&&(c==false)&&(d==false)) true;
else false;

After Effects Template & Photoshop Tutorials:
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[Daniel Futerman]

Hey Kevin,
Thanks for your help.

I played around with the expressions and also implemented the one you suggested with and addition of else = false code, and for the most part it’s done the job. It still seems like at random times the layers flip around and I really don’t get why this is, but 95% of the time it’s working as expected.

It’s actually turning out to be quite a complex and cool project, I’ll give you the heads up when it’s out there so you can see what you’ve been helping me with 😉

OK.. Going to concentrate hard on solving those last 5% now!
Thanks again guys!

After Effects Template & Photoshop Tutorials:
https://www.amigo-productions.com

[Daniel Futerman]

Thanks for your quick reply Dave!

That’s exactly the thing though, I don’t understand why a completely random layer with a ‘fast blur’ effect connected to a slider controller (on another different layer) – would affect the checkboxes which work perfectly otherwise.. Hmm..

Do expressions throughout the comp execute randomly or something like that? Is that why you said I wont be able to predict the results?

If I’m getting it all wrong here, do you possibly have a suggestion for how to make this work? It’s basically for a control panel for a template I’m working on and I want to make it super simple for the user to edit..

Thanks again! 🙂

After Effects Template & Photoshop Tutorials:
https://www.amigo-productions.com

[Daniel Futerman]

Thanks for your advice Eric.
I think I’ll go ahead and purchase the GTX 670, and look into getting 24GB of ram.

Appreciate your help guys, thanks!

Professional Multimedia Solutions:
https://www.DanielFuterman.com
Adobe Video Tutorials:
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[Daniel Futerman]

Great, thanks Tod!

So just to sum up this post, does anyone have experience with the gtx 670? Should I buy it or is there a better option for approx. the same price of $399?

Professional Multimedia Solutions:
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[Daniel Futerman]

Hmm actually.. I don’t see the GTX 670 on the recommended list of Adobe here..

Is it still ok? Or will I be limited in some way?

Professional Multimedia Solutions:
https://www.DanielFuterman.com
Adobe Video Tutorials:
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[Daniel Futerman]

Many thanks for your help Todd.

I had a look at the benchmark test (awesome work there by Danny Princz), and had a difficulty at deciding which parameter is most important. What I would think is that it all comes down to render time. The faster the render time is, the better the graphic card is. But since I’m not really a technical guy, I’m not sure if that assumption is correct?

Also, this might be a dumb question, but in the Value (price vs performance) tab, do I want the number to be high or low? i.e. is 1.38 better than 0.96?

My humble conclusion based on the benchmark tests is that for a price lower than $500, the GTX670 is one of the best options.

I’d love to hear your opinion on this!
It’s probably also important to note that I’m using Windows 7 64bit, i7 920 @2.67 GHZ, 12GB ram.

Professional Multimedia Solutions:
https://www.DanielFuterman.com
Adobe Video Tutorials:
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