[Kevin Camp]

i should have added that the fade values (fadeInStart, etc) are in pixels. they define the area that the lines will be at maximum opacity, minimum opacity or interpolate (fade) between those values.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

try this:

opacityMin = 0;
opacityMax = 100;

fadeInStart = 600;
fadeInEnd = 500;
fadeOutStart = 300;
fadeOutEnd = 200;

y = toComp(anchorPoint)[1];

if (y <= fadeOutEnd || y >= fadeInStart){
opacityMin;
}else if (y < fadeInStart && y > fadeInEnd){
linear(y, fadeInEnd, fadeInStart, opacityMax, opacityMin);
}else if (y < fadeOutStart && y > fadeOutEnd){
linear(y, fadeOutEnd, fadeOutStart, opacityMin, opacityMax);
}else{
opacityMax;
}

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

i’m not sure what you mean by ‘growing up’, but the wiggling around could be achieved with effects like turbulent displace and/or roughen edges. animate the ‘evolutions’ property and adjust other properties to suit.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

to get interaction int 3d space, you’ll need to use lights as emitters and a single instance of particular.

it looks like you’d want to create 3 lights. each needs to be named with “Emitter” as a prefix — ex: Emitter1, or EmitterRed, etc. and each with the wiggle expression used to drive your current emitter positions.

color will be determined by the color of each light, rather than the color property of the particle.

lights can control other particle properties, look up some tutorials that use lights for emitters for more info on that.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

if you issue is the proportional spacing differences between numbers, then i can only think of 3 ways tp fix it.

easiest: use a fixed width font (like courier)

medium: you might be able to use the numbers effect (it has an option to turn off proportional spacing for any font). you’d probably need to try one of the timecode options for formatting and then use a track matte of linear wipe to remove the number fields that you don’t need.

hardest: use separate text fields for each digit. I think i’d use the text layer that you have already, and then link the individual text layers for each digit to the sourceText of your current time using substr() to isolate the digit.

to get the first digit (from the 10s value for minutes):

txt = thisComp.layer(“MyTime”).text.sourceText;
txt.substr(0,1);

and use that for each digit’s text layer, modifying the substr() value as needed.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

it’s pretty much the same. they both use the same principle – create a matte closely surrounding the subject. aharon’s uses auto-traced masks and this one uses color key (or several color keys).

I remember the foundry had a tutorial that used 2 instances of key light… but the first instance may have been for an inside mask rather than outside mask… (to long ago)

one advantage of aharon’s is after the auto-trace, masks render very quickly as you work with the footage, though i’m not sure that you’d recover the initial auto-trace processing time over the remainder of the project.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

i wonder the same thing… they don’t mention anything on their site, but you can email them: support@cycorefx.com

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

yep, it’s been done before.

i’d probably set it up with a slider to control the completion (to make it more like the type-on preset).

to set that up, create your text layer, make it right justified and then add a slider expression control effect.

then copy/paste this expression to the source text property of the text layer:

completion = effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
txt = value;
n = Math.round(linear(completion, 0, 100, 0, txt.length));
(txt).substr(0,n)

as you change the slider value, the text should type on, and if you have the justification set to right, it will type out to the left.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

[Ian Ellerby] “I think I’ll try and replicate the shapes in Illustrator-stroke-outline paths-copy and past paths in AE”

that’s definitely the route i’d take.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

i wouldn’t shoot time lapse at all. i’d shoot real time (and like derek says, as low a shutter speed as you can). then speed that up in after effects. this will give you more frames to work with and smoother motion blur (if you had the ability to shoot slow-mo it would be even better).

simply speeding up the real time footage and using frame blending at that point will start to get you close to your example. using time effects like echo, wide time and/or time blend to create more motion blur… i’d probably try time blend first, but it functions a little differently than you’d think, so you might look into a tutorial first.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW