[Mike Clasby]

The fastest way to do what you want is to Time Stretch your Audio Amplitude layer (Layer > Time Stretch.). Time Stretch by 200% will make it twice as slow or half as fast. So now the expression still reads the keyframes but they’re stretched out. You can do the same thing with time remap, but this is easier.

The tempo will be cut in half, but the opacity won’t match the music anymore.

Is that what you want?

[Mike Clasby]

I’m no expert, but that’s what keying is all about, adding transparency to colors or luminosity:

Color Key

“Keylight” is very powerful and a separate instill of the disk I think.

Knoll Unmult (A FREEBIE):

https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/unmult.html

KNOLL UNMULT
Knoll UnMult is used to generate mattes for light effects or other bright elements generated on a black background. It is also the perfect solution to cleanly composite elements with pre-multiplied alpha channels.

UnMult creates an alpha channel based on the maximum luminance of the RGB channels. It also makes the RGB channels “un-premultiplied”, giving you full access to the RGB values of an element without any alpha-based attenuation.

Aharon has some tuts on Alpha:

Understanding Straight vs. Premultiplied
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/straight_vs_premult.php

He uses Keylight, here;
Creating Super Tight Junk Mattes
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/junk_mattes.php

.

[Mike Clasby]

OK, I like this even better, another script, “createCylinder”, put the .jsx in your Scripts Folder.

Then startup AE, and Select the 2D or 3D layers you want to put into a cylinder, Run>Script>Create Cylinder. In the Panel you use to Create (Creer) the Help is in English. The first parameter corresponds to the number of layers per level, the second to the Radius (rayon) of the cylinder. It creates a cylinder with a CONTROL layer (Null) to rotate/reposition the cylinder.

createCylinder
distributes the selected layers around a cylindrical shape (using expressions)

https://www.nabscripts.com/Downloads/downloads_en_1.php?id=6

You can get all his Scripts (29 so far) with the zip in the paragraph above on that same page.

“The complete library is also available as a single zip archive (76k) collecting all scripts presented here: nabLIB_v2.3.zip.”

[Mike Clasby]

If you have PhotShop Extended, you might check ths out:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/914196

It gives you a clean plate, sounds like magic to me.

[Mike Clasby]

“I want this layer to react to the beat of the music but I’m finding the frequency too fast… ”

I too don’t quite know what you mean. by “the frequency too fast… ” It reacts to the music, so maybe the music is too fast, if you know what I mean. If you want to reduce the number of keyframes because it’s too jittery, like you said, you can try the flipside of Wiggle… Smooth.

Smooth (2,5)

Here’s an earlier post for the few details available:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/911517

I like it better than the Smoother as it easier to change and isn’t destructive (it doesn’t make new keyframes).

Or, if you setup your expression reacting to the slider’s and audio amplitude with linear interpolation, it limits the range the Opacity reacts to. So your Opacity expression would look like this:

minOp = 0; //the lowest opacity you want
maxOp = 100; //the highest opacity you want
minAudio = 0; //the lowest audio level you want a reaction from
maxAudio = 20; //the highest audio level you want a reaction from

FinalOp = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”);

linear (FinalOp, minAudio, maxAudio, minOp, maxOp)

Normally you’d set up your maxAudio to whatever the maximum audio reading is on the slider (or flip down the graph to easily see), and the minAudio to zero, but if you real max is 20 and you set the maxAudio to 10 (example above) you’ll clip off that top 10-20 reaction, and similarly if you set minAudio to 5 your Opacity wouldn’t start to change until your audio was 5, so you can limit the reactions easily. Change either as needed.

[Mike Clasby]

Aharon, nice walk-through on the odometer-Offset-expression.

I’m on AE6.5 so I can’t see if your downloadable aep has that Dan expression that snaps the offset when the preceding row hits 10. Do you think you could post that here so I can take a look at it? Curiosity is killing this cat.

[Mike Clasby]

Don’t have TV Malfunction and Channel Delay effects, so I got a similar look with the following on a text layer.

Pete’s Plugin Smear.
And a random expression on Smear’s Position (as in position within the plugin):

random([thisComp.width,thisComp.height])

random([0,0],[thisComp.width,thisComp.height])

x = random(thisComp.width);
y = random(thisComp.height);
[x,y]

x = random()*thisComp.width;
y = random()*thisComp.height;
[x,y]

You can do the same thing with CC Scale Wipe, and the expression on Center.

I added a slightly bigger than the text, inverted mask on a solid above so the smear didn’t go all the way across the screen.

You could manually animater the position or center if you wanted it to turn on/off.

[Mike Clasby]

I wanna live in one of those condos you showed there in the hills above San Diego, not the penthouse but something behind on of those gothic widow ports near the top.

Or are those virtual guardhouses to go along with the upcoming virtual fence along the southern border?

Nice tut, but unfortunately we’ll need to also fortify our northern border after your diplomacy efforts.

Seriously, very nice.

[Mike Clasby]

Did see you Colin, I’m slow writing them.

[Mike Clasby]

Name your first layer “Leader” (Select layer, “Enter”, name it).

Add a slider control (Effect>Expression Controls>Slider Control. Name the slider “zSpread” (select the slider in the Effect Panel, Enter, name it).

Add your next layer.

Put this expression on Position (Copy the expression, double click the Position Stopwatch, Paste, click outside the expression box):

offset = thisComp.layer(“Leader”).effect(“zSpread”)(“Slider”);
x = thisComp.layer(“Leader”).position[0];
y = thisComp.layer(“Leader”).position[1];
z = thisComp.layer(“Leader”).position[2] + (index-1)*offset;
[x, y, z]

Now if you duplicate that layer they will have the same position as Leader, until you put a number on the slider, then they’ll spread out evenly that much.

Note: They need to be at the top of the layer stack, with leader at the very top.

If you’re not duplicating layers to make you train, select the position for that layer with the expression, then Edit>Copy Expression Only, and Paste onto as many selected layers as you want to have the expression.