[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Charlie,

to understand this better:
1. What are the footages specs which you were editing?
2. Do you render through Render Queue or Media Encoder?

40minutes of output render is significant length – it would be worth considering splitting project & output into few pieces. That way you would save yourself from trouble of potential ‘failed render/loss of output’ and improve utilisation of render machine as well.

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Kees,

few things to clarify:
1. Are you rotating shape through its shapes’s transformation properties, or from general layer rotation?
2. I assume shape layer is not center aligned in the comp?

It is not clear around which anchorpoint shape rotates, and it can be only guessed. If only ‘Transform: Rectangle 1’ transformation would be used, anchor point would stick.

Thanks!

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Paul, I would say the best way to achieve this is to split and push ‘range of text’ into array of lines. Then, linking each of array member to new text layer’s source.

By changing the ‘chars per line’ you could control how many layers would used to showcase the phrase.

Some things to consider:
1. This would require having N layers already created in the comp, and linked to text layer, which has array items.
2. If text is a continous phrase, then most likely Y alignment of text layers should be implemented.

//Layer1 text source
lines = thisComp.layer("split-text-array").text.sourceText;
lines[0];

//Layer2 text source
lines = thisComp.layer("split-text-array").text.sourceText;
lines[1];

//LayerX text source
lines = thisComp.layer("split-text-array").text.sourceText;
lines[X];

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Frank,

the Numbers effect ignores any layer’s source visuals and generates numbers solely rendered by this effect.

However, by adding the expression provided by Dan into text’s source property, you will get the numbers accordingly. Their visuals can be adjusted through the Character panel. If you need some more customisation of numbers like trailing zeroes, etc – just let us know your specification in detail.

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

On a different note, assuming that this is a repetitive task of exporting, and footage of drone is with constant frame rate.

If you render output in AE’s Render Queue, just create a ‘Render Settings’ profile which reflects Nth frame requirements.

You won’t require to constantly change source comp settings – just choosing profile before exporting would do the trick.

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

If you intent to have only a single text layer in the comp – with expressions it is not possible to achieve that.

Only a workaround could be implemented – but not a direct text source formatting change.

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Nate,

Thanks for your response, totally understand. I looked through the assets you are using and here are few insights to share with you, through my perspective:

General:
1. For smooth option, instead of using ‘Ease and Wizz’, it would be a lot better to tweak graph editor to get a ‘feel’ you are after. (It would be faster processing as well). Select all keyframes, go to graph editor, and edit ‘Speed’ graph handles.
2. For shutter expression if you keep it as it is – link ‘amp’, ‘freq’ and ‘decay’ with sliders, that you could affect all of their bouncing between various comps, at once.
3. The same goes for ‘mult’ value of ‘Speed’ expression. If you add a slider, you could control it with animation, rather than sticking to 0.5 value during whole time. This would add extra control over speed.
4. With custom graph editor handles editing, you could achieve more ‘delayed’ feeling of rolling numbers, rather than committing to EaseWizz. (This would be especially relevant to ‘tens’, which won’t start rolling too early as it is now)
5. In ideal scenario, instead of using all numbers in a single layer in each comp, I would suggest pre-composing all numbers individually and then aligning them in Y one after another by parenting to Y position.

I will call ‘first’ & ‘second’ digits as you named them in the project.

Days:
1. Second digit (of tens) abruptly goes from 3 to 0 in three frames time gap, which causes a jump. Extend composition to 4s. Then, edit Time Remap expression to reflect the new length of comp.

Months:
1. First digit does not reach ‘twelve’ value. Meaning, it should have values of
‘0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 0’
Instead:
‘0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 0’

Could you clarify the following:
1. Why you decided to set ‘Stopper’ the way its done?
2. Would you interchange between ‘Smooth’ & ‘Shutter’ versions during the same execution? (Since keyframes were set for their checkboxes)

Cheers.

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Nate,

thanks for sharing this through. Since its a bit complex in logic and requires digging through, I will look at it a bit later and provide my suggestions if any. For now, few quick insights I noticed:

1. Don’t use ‘Force Motion Blur’ nor ‘Native Motion Blur’ or any ‘Blur Effect’ while the project is in early WIP status. It slows down previews and reduces efficiency of your work.
2. The same applies for ‘bounce/overshoot’ effects, which are more like ‘nice to have’ features. Adding complexities as you go along would help to build it step by step, nailing technique one at a time towards the end result.

Cheers!

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Andrei,

assuming you are talking about the size change, its about scaling?

Anyways, below is an example how you could affect X scaling transformation only – but similar applies to any 2D array scenario. It could be done in a few ways, but this one is the clearest for myself.

(Instead of ‘transform.scale[0]’ you could simply add ‘value[0]’ of that particular property)

sX = transform.scale[0];
sY = transform.scale[1];

newX = 15; //Or slider value attached to this variable

[newX, sY]

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Dan’s method is indeed nice one!

On the other hand, specifically for text boxes most often you will want anchor point to be in a fixed place all the time. Consider adding similar sourceRectAtTime approach, just with a simplified array.

R = thisLayer.sourceRectAtTime(time);
T = R.top;
L = R.left;
W = R.width;
H = R.height;
[L+W/2, T+H/2]

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.