[Jonathan Lutjens]

Thank you, Sheikh! This is working great!
I appreciate you taking the time to answer me.

Cheers!

[Jonathan Lutjens]

That’s it! I knew it would be a simple one.
Thank you for posting so quickly!

[Jonathan Lutjens]

Scouring the webs for expression help and as is so often the case, the solution was posted by Dan. I’ve benefited from your knowledge and generosity for years. Thank you!

[Jonathan Lutjens]

Thanks so much for the replies, guys!
It’s going to take a lot for me to switch from AE, and I certainly hope that with new changes behind the scenes, the software will make a big step forward in serious post production competitiveness. Even with the things I don’t like the price is really unbeatable. I’ve learned enough smoke and mirrors over the years to be able to get great looking stuff out of AE.

As for switching over to Windows: I may consider resurrecting my last hackintosh and running windows on there. With years of archived projects and assets from a Mac OS, I’m not excited about migrating my whole workflow over to Windows.

Here’s my setup. Can’t wait till all those cores are fully employed by AE!

[Jonathan Lutjens]

I wasn’t aware of how outdated the underlying architecture of AE has been for so long. I’m certainly in favor of any upgrades and re-tooling that will lead to a better product. I’ve been using AE for about 15 years now and feel that I’ve still only scratched the surface of all its potential. I really love it and hope to continue to use it for years to come.
My problem is not with the software itself, but with the way that Adobe often chooses to move forward. When it comes to the difficulty of implementing changes like this to a working piece of software, I find that over the last 3 or 4 years the users are increasingly being asked to deal with the growing pains.
Your analogy and Brian’s response seem very fitting. If your concern is primarily for the passengers, you would take a break and land the plane.
Why not wait to update until something as critical as multiprocessing has been dialed in on the new version? I’m 95% sure that the answer has more to do with stock price and market share than with serving the people who have been AE customers for years.
I’m not going anywhere yet. I’m sure once this is sorted out I’ll be thrilled with the new version. I just wish I didn’t have to go through the headache of working around no multiprocessing. Waiting a bit longer would have been much preferred.

[Jonathan Lutjens]

Thanks for the info, Walter.
This seems to me like another case of companies moving backwards in order to keep up some strange idea of appearances or another “strategy” for sales.
If you want to put out a new version of your software that isn’t fully ready, that’s fine. But don’t bill it as an “upgrade” or update. That implies an overall improvement. Losing the ability to render with multiple processors is huge for anyone doing professional work.
It seems like Adobe did less of this in the past. Sure, new versions had bugs, but they weren’t major problems. I don’t know how to not see this as some kind of rush to “stay current” even when what you’re putting out there isn’t current where real world functionality is concerned.
If the trend continues, I may pursue Nuke…

Thanks again for sharing your experience!

[Jonathan Lutjens]

Cool. Thanks, Brian. That makes sense. I figured there would be a work-around like that; just been away from xpresso for awhile so I’m relearning all the tools.

[Jonathan Lutjens]

Thanks, Brian.
I had assumed that keyframing strength/turbulence would correlate to scene time, not particle life. Are you saying the node would apply those keyframed parameters to each particle’s lifespan?

[Jonathan Lutjens]

Good thought, Ashish, but that doesn’t seem to work. I would imagine the expression needs to be altered so that somehow it forces the animation to move from the center out (via the Index value). Given the timeline of the project I’m on I’ll have to be satisfied with the left to right movement for now.

Thanks again for your help! If I come across the solution, I’ll try to remember to post it here.

Adios!

[Jonathan Lutjens]

Thanks, Ashish.

This looks like a great tool and a perfect start for understanding type expressions.

I made a few adjustments and it looks exactly like Mr. Weink’s type. The one thing I can’t get however is
an alteration that would allow the animation to move from the center of the word to the edges. Since it’s all expression based (no range sliders) I’m a bit lost there. Do you have any thoughts on how to approach that change?

Thanks for your time!

Jon