[Kevin Camp]

also, if you want more info on expression like these, you can find more on them at motionscript.com.

these were based on the expression found here:
https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/simulation-basics-3.html

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

for position you could use something like this:
freq = 1; //bounces per second
amp = 100; //bounce height in pixels

y = Math.sin(time*Math.PI*freq)*amp/2;
value + [0,y]

it will cause a layer to continually bounce in an elastic fashion.

if you needed a hard bounce (like a ball bouncing off the ground), you could change the third line to this:
y = Math.abs(Math.sin(time*Math.PI*freq))*amp;

for rotation, since you could use the same expression but change the last line to this
value + y

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

just to make sure i know what you’re asking…

you want each layer to be 15 seconds with a 5 second fade-in, 5 seconds at 100% and then 5 seconds to fade out. you still want to keep the 3 second offset between layers and you’d like to have the fade start at the inpoint and the after the fade out to set an outpoint.

first off, expressions can’t set in or out points, so if you go this route, you’ll need to use a different method to create the offset (animation>keyframe assistant>sequence layers can do this, so that’s not a big deal).

so the first thing you’ll want to do is make all the layers the same length. if they currently all start at the first keyframe of the comp, simply select all the layers, go 15 seconds down the timeline and then hit alt-] or option-] (right-bracket key) to trim them all to the same length.

then with the layers still selected, choose animation>keyframe assistant>sequence layers and choose the option for overlap and enter the duration of the overlap, which if i understand what you want would be 13 seconds. note that the order in which you select the layers determines the order that the layers will be sequenced, first layer selected will be first in the timeline.

then for the opacity expression you want something like this:
duration = 5;
if (time>=inPoint && time

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

So the first thing you’ll want to do is add a slider control to the calculatedNumber layer (effect>expression controls>slider control).

then select all of your numbers value/offset/random keyframes and copy them. then select the slider control slider property and paste those keyframes.

now you slider values should mirror your numbers values.

once that is done, you can delete the keyframes from the numbers value and enable expresssion for that property and enter (or paste) this:

Math.abs(effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”))

now you’ll also need to direct your fill color expression to look at the slider value rather than the numbers value. so you’ll need to change the second line of your expression to this:

calcValue = effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);

and that should do it.

the problem you were having before was that the color expression needed the negative values of the numbers value to work properly, so when you used Math.abs() to drop the minus sign, the color expression only saw positive values.

to fix that, we needed a value that still had positive and negative values, so an easy way is to use a slider control.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

sorry i think i didn’t explain that well.

i’d use the slider’s value for the numbers effect value, but use the expression (in the numbers value) to remove the minus sign… (still sounds confusing)

try this:

remove any expressions on the slider’s value.

add this expression to the numbers value:

Math.abs(effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”));

if the slider is on the same layer and still named ‘slider control’ that should work.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

you could also try track mattes.

i’d start by creating the track matte in a new comp. create a bunch of rectangles that fill the screen, go to about 1-2 seconds down the timeline and add position keyframes for all the rectangle layers. then move back to the beginning of the comp and slide them horizontally off the screen. then just tweak the first and last keyframes of thow layers to make them move on screen randomly.

bring that matte comp into a new comp and bring in the footage layer bellow the matte layer, then, for the footage layer, select ‘alpha matte’ from the trkmat menu in the ‘modes’ panel on the timeline.

if you scrub the timeline, you should see that footage layer reveal.

the footage layer is independent from the track matte, so you can animate the postion, change the scale add color effects, etc, without effecting the matte.

so now you can just duplicate both the footage layer and the matte layer, adjust the timing of the reveal by moving the matte in the time line and triming the footage layers to match the new in-points, then add position changes, scale and/or effects to the footage layer (from the looks of it, they used tint or tritone for the colorizing).

do that five or six times and i think you’ll be close with various changes to the footage layers.

if needed, you can make different track mattes for some of the footage layers to change it up a little more.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

you might try using a slider to set the actual +/- values, then point your expression to the slider value.

that way you’ll have the minus value to use to set the color to red and you can then use Math.abs() on the slider value for the numbers value.

you could also simplify your expression a bit with else ifs, something like this:

n = effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
if (n > 0) [0,0,0,1];
else if (n < 0) [.8,0,0,1];
else [1,1,1,1];

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

a basic block dissolve is pretty simple, there’s an effect with that name in effects>transitions. you’ll just want to set the block width and height to be fairly large (like 50-100px), uncheck the option for soft edges and animate the completion property.

however, the example you have starts with a basic block dissolve, then then does a left-to right block-like wipe…. if you need that, that’s a little trickier.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

the color should change on each bounce keyframe (the default color was yellow, so if your text is yellow it might not show up). to change the color twirl down the layer’s text property>animator 1 and set the fill color as needed.

if for some reason the fill color property is not there, from the add menu next to the animator 1 property select fill color. it should add a fill color property to that animator.

or, if you want the text to stay yellow after the ball continues to the next word, simply disable the expression that is on the range selector 1>start property to keep it at zero.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

Quicktime Photo-JPEG is very good. at high quality settings (90-99) any loss is practically imperceivable at that level of quality the files will be larger that prores, but higher quality. i couldn’t tell you exactly what quality setting would equate to prores 422, but you might be able to find that info on the web. it’s a standard part of quicktime, so you already have it on your system.

avid also has a free codec (available from their site) called dnxhd, which is practically identical to prores, and it will work just fine with ae and premiere.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW