[Søren Storm]

UPDATE: I solved the following. In short I found a script that makes coordinates from anchors in excel, took these coordinates into notepad++, made a macro that made the data readable in excel, in excel I calculated opacity to zero between strokes, copied both position data and opacity data back into notepad++, and from there, into the code needed for after effects to recognize both opacity and position data. I now takes 1/10 of the time to do the animations, an although its not completely automatic, I am satisfied with the result. BTW: In the beginning the letters were rotated 180 degrees and mirrored over the vertical axis. I just counterrotated and mirrored in illustrator before I exported with the anchor to coordinates script. If anyone need help doing this, feel free to ask about details, but if I´m the only one worried about this (-: then it´s all good with this. This just so no one spends a lot of time trying to solve my issue.

[Søren Storm]

I stumpled upon this video, explaining how JSON files can be linked to your after effects project. Maybe they can be of use for you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPiyOGyjWvI

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[Søren Storm]

Which part of it?

• The random letters?
• Or the random flickering of the letters?

[Søren Storm]

Cool thanks! 🙂 Now I have something to work on. I have done some scripting in Linux for some MD simulations, so I´m not completely green. The scripts I worked on there was mainly file maintenance (incredibly important when you run 50 simulations with huge amounts of xyz files (for each frame), waiting for simulated crystal to settle. All simulation packages was NOT done by me, But it´s already 3 years ago. It´s incredibly rewarding when it works out, so I guess that´s been my main motivation – that it may actually work 🙂 Also it pains me physically to do stuff again and again, that can be done better by a computer.

The scripting I did in the MD simulations was mainly C++, but the syntax… Damn. How on earth did people learn how to program before google came along?

Thanks again Joe! I will return when I have had some spare coding time again! 🙂

[Søren Storm]

Hi Joe (and creative cows in general)!

Thank you for getting me started on scriptning. It´s been great getting into it. Spend the last couple of evenings scriptning my very own pretty ok system for making coordinate systems of various dimensions. The result is here:

Example of a plot from the script: You can download the script to test it yourself here: 10189_graph.jsx.zip

-You can input number of (datadividers? Can´t figure out the english term for it)
-You can input dimensions (both axis)
-Future functionality: Axis labeling, by prompting
-Future functionality: x and y axis scale suggestions from reading spreadsheet data

BUT:
1) I am stuck on reading the maximum value of the arrays x values and y values into two seperate variables, in the script you wrote for me. For this reason I have not combined your script with my code yet. I tried math.max.apply, but get errors… I don´t even know if it´s an array you generate 😛 I need this to automate sizing of the graph and a couple of other things.

2) I want to be able to center the texts under each datadivider, even though I use
myText.justification = ParagraphJustification.CENTER_JUSTIFY;
It seems not to center it, as can be seen on the x-axis on the example png.

3) Is there a smarter way of reading comp dimensions, than my rough input in the beginning of the script?
screen_width = 1920;
screen_height = 1080;

4) I have an inherent problem with variable names. They get very long. Sorry.

I really hope you can help me with 1)-3). I´m beyond help with 4).

Best regards
Søren

[Søren Storm]

I can read data into after effects 🙂 Thank you Joe. It works!
I did one change to your code, because it´s not always a time in seconds on the first axis. So that part I´ve changed to:

textLayer.position.setValue([text[0],1080-text[1]]);

I have some questions about your code, and how to implement stretching the data, with a max min search in. But it´s late here – and so I will crash. Thank you again. You brought me a great leap forward 🙂

[Søren Storm]

Wow! Thank you! I can’t wait to check this out! I’ll be back with the result of your work! Thanks Joe!!

[Søren Storm]

Sorry – the file was not included. I have the example here; from dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/620fpaod9ezwuhn/example.txt?dl=0

If you can´t read it; I have copy pasted part of it here:
Time (s) Pulse (BPM)
1 71
2 71
3 72
4 65
5 65
6 64,875
7 64,75
8 64,625
9 64,5
10 64,375
11 64,25
12 64,125
13 64
14 65
15 65,6667

…And so on for 2000 seconds.

[Søren Storm]

I think paths into a shape layer would be the way to go. I have MANY coordinates. Wouldn´t it be confusing with 500+ layers?

[Søren Storm]

I think I get what you mean. I have done some scripts in the past, but nothing fancy. I have done some basic copy paste scriptning, were I needed a plane to follow a parabolic path, which involved editing existing code.

I have an idea of what the overall code might do:

1) Read file, find number of coordinate pairs (x, y), and determine max / min values

2) Read coordinates into an array (I guess)

3) Convert coordinates to fit on the screen (x_max = 1920, y_max=1080, minus some space for the graph axis)

4) Put each coordinate into a shape (a small circle), in a shape layer

And that would be it. Later on I would like to experiment with things like letting the coordinates scroll through the screen (if its a large dataset). This I guess could be achieved by setting the coordinate for each frame, minus e.g. the framenumber, and masking the coordinates out.

BUT: I have no clue on how to do 1) – 4). Any help would be greatly appreciated! 🙂

Best regards
Søren