[Felix Klee]

My own fix was to extract the audio to MP3 using ffmpeg, and then import that into the Vegas broken video editor.

[Felix Klee]

Thanks for the suggestions!

Actually, I already am using Grate, which is one of the Sony Checkerboard FX presets.

The rotation problem I solved – as described in my other message – by using Track Motion.

[Felix Klee]

The Track Motion tool does the trick. I still don’t understand the logic behind Pan/Crop not rotating the pattern.

[Felix Klee]

Just some trash:

https://vine.co/v/Oi7AxVz7qXK

Please let me know what I can do better next time. I didn’t remove the hiss, because I think it makes the sound more natural, and also because it’s masked by the music to some extent. The music is supposed to sound like from a radio, and so – upon suggestion by Steve – I applied parametric EQ with “Phone line effect”.

A problem for me was mixing music and sound effects. When listening with my headphones, the drawing sound is much more audible. In the end, I optimized for my laptop speakers, and so I turned down music quite a bit.

[Felix Klee]

Thanks for the suggestion! freesound is a great site, and I’ve used it in the past. However, I’m not too optimistic that there is the sound of a pen drawing a line for 2.5 seconds. That’s actually quite a long time.

Anyhow, now I’ve made my own recording, and I’m happy with it.

[Felix Klee]

I don’t understand: If I drag the right edge, then the clip repeats and I see a little white triangle indicating where it starts again. Ctrl-dragging allows me to time-stretch the clip, but the result is unpleasant.

At the moment I am trying to make recordings with my Android tablet and an external headset. If only my neighbors could shut up!

[Felix Klee]

Thanks for the simple solution!

[Felix Klee]

Thanks!

[Felix Klee]

[Steve Renard] “The method I’m describing doesn’t involve any smooth motion – the if/else statement makes it a simple on-off depending on where the nulls are in relation to the box – so maybe the way to do it is some sort of combination of methods where a script lays out the boxes and an expression determines whether they’re on or off.”

As it looks, I will be using something like this in the end. 🙂

Just figured out the following method, which I tested with 2D layer positions:

• In a text layer, I have an expression with the precalculated positions depending on the frame number and the index of a layer. I use an expression here since that makes editing simpler, at least for me (After Effects noob).
  "var positions = [[[300, 10], [500, 80]], [[100, 10], [400, 200]], [[100, 40], [300, 200]]];" +
"positions[timeToFrames()][index-1];"
• For testing, I add two image layers with indexes 1 and 2. To each one I add a position expression:
  "eval(thisComp.layer("Position").text.sourceText.toString());"

Works fine. The next step is conversion to 3D and toggling the visibility of layers.

Concerning the algorithm for block configurations: It’s a bit complicated and that’s why I prefer to have the configurations be calculated outside of After Effects. Or perhaps I’ll use a script for that.

[Felix Klee]

[Walter Soyka] “Expressions and scripts are not at all the same. Expressions are code you can apply to any property in AE (position, opacity, etc.) that returns a value to that property, and is evaluated on every frame. Scripting actually controls the application itself, not the visual output. They have very different approaches.”

I am aware of that difference. The reason I wrote that expressions and scripts are based on the same technology: They are both based on JavaScript, and probably they share a common set of After Effects specific functions. Therefore I assume that at least some of those who are experienced with expressions also know how to do scripting.

“Now that I understand what you’re trying to do a little better, I think that Steve is on the right track. You could absolutely do this with expressions by building all the elements, then using logic and expressions to control how they appear, move, arrange, and disappear.”

I was thinking about this method even before doing the original post. However, I assume that it is hard to do, due to the nature of the underlying mathematical system for building the block configurations. Will think about it again, though.

Note that we don’t want to do a smooth animation: Every frame has a different block configuration. I.e. you don’t see movement or rotation. Blocks just appear and disappear.