[Mike Clasby]

One way is tying either Amplitude or Frequency of the wiggle to a slider, then keyframing the slider. setting the slider to a number (7) gives you that Amplitude, then 0 down the line kills the wiggle (gradually), if you want the wiggle to stop abruptly use hold keyframes.

In case you don’t know how:

wiggle (7,30)

highlight (select) the 7, then pickwhip to a slider stopwatch(Effect>Expression Controls>Slider Control) and you have an expression like this:

wiggle (effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”),30)

Setting keyframes with the slider now puts you in complete control.

If you want all layers to wiggle the same, in unison, Put the Slider on a Null (Master) and pickwhip to that.

Note: You don’t have to do all the expression stuff manually for each letter layer, just set up one, Highlight the property with the expression and Edit>Copy Expression Only, then select the new layers you want the expression applied to and Paste. Pretty quick.

You could also do a slider for the Frequenct (30) but if you like the 30 I’d leave it.

If you think you’ll use the setup again, Save it as an Animation Preset.

[Mike Clasby]

I agree with “stevem1928”, Serge’s is a little on the slow side to render (not so bad with newer machines), but way cool and true 3D. It’s a great setup you can rotate the book anyway you want or set up a camera and fly around the book.

[Mike Clasby]

It was 5.5 Standard(Edu) to 6.5 Pro (Commercial) a year ago, Adobe wants to convert students to regular customers, I thought it was a great deal seeing as the Edu version is half Price (and Standard half the Pro price) so basically you get to upgrade to a package 4 times the value for $200(I haven’t checked prices lately, this is off the top of my head).

I’m assuming the upgrade prices are online, just hit the buy button at Adobe AE, they were a year ago.

I ordered it from Adobe and it was fast delivery, 3 to 5 days I think.

You do need to have the serial numbers for your Ed version, that was either at ordering or Installation (yeah, I think at Installation).

[Mike Clasby]

Fear not to do an Advanced Search, just be sure to choose:

Search Terms – Sparkle

(and most impostant to search all the way back)

How far back do you want to search? – choose – “All Active Posts”

Search the Archives? – choose – Yes

———————————————

This post made a nice Big Smile Sparkle, (zip file):

Name: Jonathan Miller
Date: May 15, 2006 at 9:52:06 am
Subject: Re: Smile twinkle.

No need for a plugin. I do this a few times a year and have made a graphic to use over and over.

http://www.treelineproductions.com/preview/starsparkle.psd.zip

Add the psd to your comp and keyframe the scale from zero to whatever size you want then back down to zero. At the same time, keyframe the rotation from zero to, say, 180.

So, you should have 3 keyframes for the scale, and 2 for the rotation.

Easy.

Good luck!

Jon
TreeLine Productions
Fort Collins, CO USA

——————————————–

Or this,

Name: Yoshi
Date: Jul 1, 2005 at 12:10:45 pm
Subject: Sparkle effect

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=855276

————————-

Maybe a particle generator, Particular or Particle Illusion (lots of presets0 with lowered opacity.

[Mike Clasby]

You might check out Crazy Talk, it’s not perfect but I have 3.5, it’s 4.5 now so better. I used it to animate an Illustrator Bigfoot. There is a trail version and the only learning curve is fitting the face with the morph line, then it will lip-sync to your audio or text (synth voice then).

https://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/

[Mike Clasby]

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=882826

[Mike Clasby]

If the “Text Face” is a seperate layer, you might try CC Light Sweep. Tweak it to make it subtle.

Or you could make the layers 3D and click Accept Shadows under materials, add a light and tweak it.

Depends on what you mean by “as if the text face is subtly reflecting light from another source”.

[Mike Clasby]

Yep, I went from Educational Standard AE 5.5 to (Commercial) Pro 6.5 for the same $200 as if you’d upgraded AE Standard or Pro 6.0 to 6.5.

[Mike Clasby]

You want to Edit>Extract Work Area

Details from Searching “Cut Frame” in AE Help gives this (the bottom part is what you want):

Removing a section of a layer

——————————————————————————–

Remove a portion from the middle of one or more layers from the Timeline using the following two methods:

Lifting removes a section from the layers and leaves a gap of the same duration as the section you remove.
Extracting removes a section from the layers and closes the resulting gap by ripple deletion.

To remove a section and leave a gap in time (lift):

In the Timeline window, adjust the work area to include only the portion of the layer or layers that you want to remove:
Move the time indicator to the time at which you want the work area to begin and press B on your keyboard.
Move the time indicator to the point where you want the work area to end, and press N.
Select the layers you want to remove a section from or turn on the lock switch for any layers you do not want affected by the extraction.

Choose Edit > Lift Work Area to remove the section from all unlocked layers.

To remove a section and close the resulting gap (extract):

Follow steps 1 and 2 of the procedure for lifting (above).
Choose Edit > Extract Work Area.

PS. I’m glad you asked the question, I’d been wondering how to do that to, just hadn’t gotten around to looking it up.

[Mike Clasby]

The good news is the upgrade from Educational is the same upgrade amount as if you’d have had the Regular (Commercial) version to start with, $200.