[Kevin Camp]

try this
txt = effect("Slider Control")("Slider").value;
goal = effect("Slider Control 2")("Slider").value;

if (txt == goal) txt+"!" else txt

and for the checkbox expression, change the last line to:
if (txt == goal) true else false

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

since had asked about an expression, the fast easy way with an expression would be to use the valueAtTime() function…

what you’d want to do is animate one of the layers the way you’d want it to move (i’ll call it the ‘leader’), then you use the expression to have the other layers follow the leader.

to make it easy have the follower layers ordered consecutively under the leader and then try an expression like this for each of the followers.

offset = .25; //value in seconds
thisComp.layer(index-1).position.valueAtTime(time-offset)

the expression tells a layer to use the position of the layer above it back in time (.25 seconds in this case).

this may not be the best option for you… since the valueAtTime() function is time based, the spacing of the layer will vary based on the speed of the leader. a fast moving chain of layers will have a larger space than a slow moving chain, so if the speed of the leader changes the spacing will too…

some times that’s good, some times not. i’ve used this to animate dots to represent traffic on a map, and it worked great. when traffic moved fast, the dots spaced out, then when it slowed, they all bunched together. but if i had needed the spacing to stay consistent, either of the other methods would have been better.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

[Dan McGarry] “maybe it was the video codec”

could be… h.264 would not be a codec that i’d use in ae (or any interframe codecs like hdv, xdcam, mpeg-2…)

you’ll find that ae works best with intraframe codecs. some common ones for video are apple’s prores, avid’s dnxhd and quicktime photo-jpeg, but there are others.

after your deadline, you can check to see if the footage was an issue by converting the h.264 to photo-jpeg (or similar) and see if you have the same problems.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

if you were going to do this with ae, i’d drop your footage into a pal standard comp.

size it to fit the pal frame (layer>transform>fit comp width or fit comp height).

then set time stretch to 104.271% — 100*25fps/23.976fps. if you have true 24fps footage, then 100*25fps/24fps = 104.167%.

you can enable frame blending (pixel motion) for the footage layer and ae will interpolate the second field data, you you can choose to render 25i without frame blending which will the appear like 25p, either option is usually aceptable… frame blending takes longer, but usually looks smoother, however, some transitions (like cuts) can create some issue (due to trying to interpolate a new frame between two frames from different scenes — essentially you get one garbage frame)… i would probably lean towards rendering without frame blending, but it depends on the project.

note, changing the speed of the footage will cahnge the pitch of the audio slightly… many nle’s will have the ability to fix the pitch and may be a better choice for this sort of thing, but in ae, that’s the method i’d use.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

cc time blend is pretty fast.

it works differently than echo, number ‘echoes’ is defined by accumulation percentage, and i believe the percentage is based on the number of frames that can be held in your ram buffer, but trial and error should be able to get you close.

also, since it uses buffered frames, as you work with cc time blend, you’ll want to always preview from the first frame of the comp and always clear the buffer (option at the top of the effect or edit>purge>all).

also, there is no decay or starting intensity. the effect simply composites frames frames on top of frames.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

to get a different ease function, you’d need to define your own function…

i haven’t tried anything like that, but you can check out this post from dan:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/227/23434

he creates a cubic ease-in function, but it would take a little work to get it to run with my example…

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

i’ve never found a way, maybe some one can give a definitive answer… so i’ll stop trying to do this 😉

i know ae knows how many lines are in a text paragraph layer, because if you do add text animator to a paragraph text layer that has wrapping lines, twirl down the advanced tab, set ‘based on’ to lines and ‘units’ to index, low-and-behold the end point changes to the number of lines in the text layer.

**before you get to excited, thinking that you can just link you expression to the end point value of that text layer (as i did once), that end point value doesn’t update with a source text update.. so if the first time you try this the end point value is ‘3’, it will remain 3 despite how many times lines are in there the next time you type (or copy/paste).

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

actually you wouldn’t want to use true parenting, the expression will simply take the position value from one layer, and then switch to the position of a different layer, but interpolate between the two positions during the transition.

looking back, i should have stated that my reply. sorry for the confusion.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

‘fill the whole screen except the letters…’

sorry i messed that part up, you’ll need to make the text in the text comp a track matte for another solid (or some other method to reverse the alpha of the text layer), then the flowers should emit from around the text.

also, particle playground would get tough… it get a bit tweaky with the animated particle sprite. it may be doable, but it would take some work, or someone who’s better with that effect than i.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

if you have trapcode particular, you can precomp the text and use it as a layer emitter. then precomp the flower animation and use that as a custom particle.

set the particle velocity to zero, and the flowers should only be emitted from solid alpha portion of the text.

then it’s a matte of tweaking the birth rate and such…

without particular, you can use particle playground… i’d need to look back at that effect, it’s been a while since i’ve used it much.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW