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martinw51935614
martinw51935614
Known Participant
March 28, 2017
Answered

Departure Board: Starting and stopping and starting again with expressions?

  • March 28, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 2311 views

Sorry if this question was asked before. I searched this forum and google and so on, but couldn't find any help.

I'm a newbie to after effects and expressions.

This is my topic:

I have a base comp that shoes a departure board like it is on airports or railway stations. It is divided in three lines, each with thirteen flipping cards.

Every flipping card is a layer with the same little animation where the letters rotate from A to z. All together 39 single flipping cards.

What I try to achieve is that all the letters at first make one loop from A to Z. In the next loop one flipping card should stop for example at "P", the next one when it reaches "O" and so on until the last one has reached the desired letter for the complete word i want to show. The rest should stay at their base blank position. After a few seconds the letters should start from their last stopping point or the base position, rotate and stop one after another at the desired next letter of the next word. Again holding this word for a few secs and rotate again.

Up to this point i've done this with time remapping and thousends of keyframes for starting and stopping points.

But, it is a horror show of layers and keyframes.

If i want to pause a word for a little longer i have to move thousands of keyframes.

It's a mess.

Also I have the problem, that i have to loop manually and this leads to the problem, that at the end of a loop, before the next loop starts, for only one frame blinks a  "back loop" to the starting point. I've made a blank layer wich i position all over my departure board every time this effect appears.

Is there a more elegant way by using e.g. markerkeys, expressions etc. to let this all work?

Most of the answers i've found until now deal with the topic of wiggleing, random effects, moving an objekt or changing values e.g. for opacity.

What i need is an ability to control timeline, time remapping and looping at very certain points.

Sorry again for my stupid explantation of the topic, but my english is as worse as my knowledge base for after effects 😉

Thanks for your help in advance.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Rick Gerard

    Personally I would create a loop that just has characters flipping and add some motion blur. Then I would set up s short comp that has the final letters flipping into place. I would then just start editing the lines of text by putting the loop in between the new words. There's no way somebody watching this video is going to be able to tell whether or not you went from p to m buy rolling through the alphabet one letter at a time.

    I hope this gives you some more options.

    Let me think out loud for a few minutes. Just tying a slider to a character value can give you a bunch of changing letters, but they won't be in order. That's the biggest problem with your idea, characeer 13 is not M and character 14 is not N so you can't just use numbers to drive the changes.

    If you had a rolling alphabet you could use a simple expression on time remapping to start and stop at specific letters and roll through the alphabet and stop at a specific letter. An easier way may be to use layer markers to set the stop letters and just not worry about cycling through at a specific rate.

    I hope these suggestions help. The most important thing to learn in film production is that film is not real. It's an illusion and the most efficient way to tell your story is to make things appear to work instead of actually working.

    Come to think of it I think I'd create a bottom layer that had all of the letters cycling trough on a roll for the entire shot. Then I would create short layers with the letters forming the words that you want to reveal and just edit them in maybe with an expression based on in and out points controlling directional blur and opacity so it looked like they were moving for the one or two frames where they start and stop. That would be the easiest way for me to approach the project as you have described it. I would never worry about having the letters sequentially move from one word to the next.

    1 reply

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Legend
    March 28, 2017

    Sure, it could all be rigged up with expressions, but that doesn't mean it would necessarily be simpler. that and of course someone would have to sit down to write the code in the first place.

    Mylenium

    martinw51935614
    martinw51935614Author
    Known Participant
    March 28, 2017

    Thanks for your answer.

    As i said, i'm looking for a more elegant way.

    I don't want anyone to do all the work for me, writing any extended scripts i don't understand in the end.

    Sorry, if this was the impression my question suggested.

    I've tried to summarize it as i wrote, that i'm looking for a ability to control the timeline.

    Maybe i've searched not enough or did it with the wrong keywords.

    But espeacially on this topic i couldn't find any answers.

    R
    Community Expert
    Rick GerardCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    March 28, 2017

    Personally I would create a loop that just has characters flipping and add some motion blur. Then I would set up s short comp that has the final letters flipping into place. I would then just start editing the lines of text by putting the loop in between the new words. There's no way somebody watching this video is going to be able to tell whether or not you went from p to m buy rolling through the alphabet one letter at a time.

    I hope this gives you some more options.

    Let me think out loud for a few minutes. Just tying a slider to a character value can give you a bunch of changing letters, but they won't be in order. That's the biggest problem with your idea, characeer 13 is not M and character 14 is not N so you can't just use numbers to drive the changes.

    If you had a rolling alphabet you could use a simple expression on time remapping to start and stop at specific letters and roll through the alphabet and stop at a specific letter. An easier way may be to use layer markers to set the stop letters and just not worry about cycling through at a specific rate.

    I hope these suggestions help. The most important thing to learn in film production is that film is not real. It's an illusion and the most efficient way to tell your story is to make things appear to work instead of actually working.

    Come to think of it I think I'd create a bottom layer that had all of the letters cycling trough on a roll for the entire shot. Then I would create short layers with the letters forming the words that you want to reveal and just edit them in maybe with an expression based on in and out points controlling directional blur and opacity so it looked like they were moving for the one or two frames where they start and stop. That would be the easiest way for me to approach the project as you have described it. I would never worry about having the letters sequentially move from one word to the next.

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