[John Cuevas]

Actually had one more suggestion. Instead of a expression to rotation “index * ???” Create a null object first and add a angle slider control. Then add your expression to rotation “index *thisComp.layer(“Control”).effect(“Angle Control”)(1)”

Then after you duplicate the layer, you adjust the angle control to change the spacing/angle of the layers from each other.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com

[John Cuevas]

You’re right that was some extra work with the parenting unparenting…

But in the same vein(using the index trick to isolate one line of text), you could set up the first layer, like before. Offset the anchor point to circle radius. Then add an expression to rotatation “index*3” Then duplicate the layers. Then you just need a null to animate them.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com

[John Cuevas]

This is how I would do this. You need your text set up so they are on seperate lines in the text block. Add an opacity animator, set it to subtract and make the opacity 0. Change the Units to “Index” and Based On to “Lines”. Add and expression to Start “index -1” and to End “index”. Now duplicate your text layer until all lines of text are on it.

Create a null and move it to where you would have your circle center. Parent all the text to null, except the first layer and change the null rotation by say 5 degrees. Now unparent the 2nd line and repeat until you do this for every line of text. Now parent everything back to the null and animate the rotation property.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com

[John Cuevas]

Actually came up with a way that sort of works, adding sliders to the text layer.

Create a blank text layer(cntl+alt+shift+t) and add a slider. Add this expression to source text “Math.round(effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”))”
Duplicate text layer.

Make your sum text layer, and add the following expression to source text:
a = thisComp.layer(” 3″).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
b = thisComp.layer(” 2″).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
a + b

Basically instead of trying to convert the ASCII text, I’m getting my numbers from the slider. I just used the pick whip for the entire operation.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com

[John Cuevas]

If this is possible(not sure if it is, numbers are really just ASCII text)the person to ask is Dan Ebberts in the Expressions forum.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com

[John Cuevas]

Use the “[” to move the head of the clip to the CTI, or “]” to move the tail of the clip to the CTI.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com

[John Cuevas]

1) And the work he was doing made me wonder if he’d actually submitted someone else’s stuff in the competition because it was MUCH better than what he was showing me.

This actually happened to me years ago. Producer/slash journalist freelanced for a year on a show we produced. Month afterword, the phone rings, “can you answer some questions about so-and-so, he’s applying for an avid editor position” Piqued my interest, in the year he’d worked for us, he never edited on the Avid, just did cuts-only on the linear system. So I asked what videos is he showing you on his demo? And sure enough, they were all things I had cut, his only contribution was he’d voiced them.

Not sure if he kept using my work or not(I didn’t have his phone number to ream him out), but he most definitely didn’t get that job.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com

[John Cuevas]

Open Photoshop and create a text layer and enter in your text. Bring in your texture, or create a new layer, solid color that you will use as a fill and place this in the layer below your text.

Select the text layer and use the magic wand and select in the transparent area around your text. Move down to your solid/texture and hit delete. If you have letters like cap “P” you may have to repeat this step a couple of times to knock out the hole area in the “P”.

Now make sure to delete the default white background layer and select merge layers. Save as a .psd and you have a filled text layer.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com

[John Cuevas]

Been playing with this a little bit. I took a picture into photo shop. Went into Image> Modes> Indexed Color and chose Uniform, Color = 8 and I changed the amount to 50%. Seems to give a pretty good look of 80’s color. Add some distortion/degradation in AE and you should be good to go.

For the aliasing, I just added a mosiac effect and divided the size of the image by 4—looked like an 80’s video game to me and my co-workers.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com

[John Cuevas]

If you use coloramma, turn off “interpolate pallette”, tanken together with Walter’s suggestions should get you pretty close.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com