[George Goodman]

Something like this would work, but I’m not sure it’s the best solution. It really all depends on how much you want to animate it after it collapses. This expression says, at 1 second on the timeline, start collapsing. The collapse animation will happen for 1.5 seconds. Just change the start and duration values to your liking. Any animation after the collapse though would have to be done with keyframing (unless further work was done with the expression).

start=1;
duration=1.5;
t=time;
expand=value+[0,(index-1)*1000];

if (t < start) expand
if (t >= start) ease(t,start,start+duration,expand,value)

“|_ (°_0) _|”

Sincerely,

George

http://www.vimeo.com/georgegoodman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgefranklingoodman

[George Goodman]

I would do it with a couple of separate track matte layers.

“|_ (°_0) _|”

Sincerely,

George

http://www.vimeo.com/georgegoodman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgefranklingoodman

[George Goodman]

Actually, this is totally possible. You just may have to adjust your approach.

Assuming you are using text within the program this will work.

Create open shape layers that go through the middle of each letter – but make them on the same layer. You can do this by clicking “contents” in the shape layers drop down as you go to draw each shape. Then, add a stroke to paths and make it wide enough that it covers the entire letter. Then add a trim paths animator. Rather than making the trim paths simultaneous, you’ll probably want it to be sequential. Now parent the shape layer to the text. Make the text layer an alpha matte of the shape layer.

Now you can just move the text around and change its scale and the track matte will follow. Just don’t change any of the text options – only the transform options.

I actually do something to this effect quite often, but I like to make each letter its own layer and each shape its own layer as well. It’s more time consuming, but more flexible. Thats part of how I revealed the letters in this:

https://dribbble.com/shots/1548645-Pagemodo-Logo-GIF?list=users&offset=1

“|_ (°_0) _|”

Sincerely,

George

http://www.vimeo.com/georgegoodman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgefranklingoodman

[George Goodman]

you would just want to invert the rotation of the rectangle. So just change the name of the layer and this should work assuming you have all your anchor points set up correctly

thisComp.layer("rectangle").rotation*-1

“|_ (°_0) _|”

Sincerely,

George

http://www.vimeo.com/georgegoodman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgefranklingoodman

[George Goodman]

If you set the anchor point of the flare to the center of the circle, you should just be able to rotate it. This of course depends on how you set up your flare effect, but that should be the general idea.

“|_ (°_0) _|”

Sincerely,

George

http://www.vimeo.com/georgegoodman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgefranklingoodman

[George Goodman]

I’m not sure that I understand the problem. Do you have to work on two masks at a time? Why can’t you just work on 1, lock that one, then work on the other?

“|_ (°_0) _|”

Sincerely,

George

http://www.vimeo.com/georgegoodman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgefranklingoodman

[George Goodman]

You could lock each mask after it is created, then you won’t be able to add any vertices.

“|_ (°_0) _|”

Sincerely,

George

http://www.vimeo.com/georgegoodman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgefranklingoodman

[George Goodman]

I think Mark is right – even though it totally sucks.

I think you just need to figure out who is pulling the strings saying you need to pay, and see if you can convince them the reshoot covered it and see if they’re reasonable enough to see it from your pov. If not, consider if the relationship is worth saving. It’s not a lot of money, so maybe it is. Then again, are they just going to ask you for another low budget shoot? Is that really worth your time?

Sorry bud, hate hearing about that kind of thing. Sounds like you were pretty darn prudent though and it sucks if you still end up paying for it.

“|_ (°_0) _|”

Sincerely,

George

http://www.vimeo.com/georgegoodman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgefranklingoodman

[George Goodman]

Interesting idea. Sorry to say I haven’t heard of one, maybe someone else has though.

This goes along the lines of something I’ve requested a couple of times, that, if you feel so inclined, could also 🙂

I really want an expression null that each layer evaluates independently. You could just parent layers to it and they would all read it as if it were on their own layer. This way, if it was wiggle, they wouldn’t all move the same way, or if it was referenced a layers index, they would act appropriately. I don’t know the full extent of your situation, but hypothetically you could update one expression and it would all be fixed (or maybe 3 expressions since you said it was for multiple properties – assuming they don’t all have different variables).

“|_ (°_0) _|”

Sincerely,

George

http://www.vimeo.com/georgegoodman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgefranklingoodman

[George Goodman]

The video time didn’t work, but I think I know what you’re talking about – I’m guessing the wiggle during the big symbol crash. That would be something like this:

s=thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”);
threshold=25;
howmany=3;
amount=50;

x=value[0];
y=value[1];

if (s < threshold) [x,y]
else [wiggle(howmany,amount),wiggle(howmany,amount)]

The threshold controls the value the slider must be to activate the wiggle. How many is how many wiggles per second. Amount is how many pixels the wiggle can move (in this case anywhere between 1-50)

This is untested, btw, so let me know if there is a problem.

“|_ (°_0) _|”

Sincerely,

George

http://www.vimeo.com/georgegoodman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgefranklingoodman