Skip to main content
jons81864
jons81864
Participant
August 15, 2019
Question

How can I associate an expression to move a rotating wheel X times depending on audio amplitude?

  • August 15, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 2318 views

My problem is simple but I can't for the love of anything figure it out. I'm trying to move a rotation wheel X values depending on the amplitude of a track.

Basically = I want the CC Kaleida Rotation to move according to the audio amplitude keyframe value I choose, say <>55.

I used linear(value,50,55,0,100) to move the size slider, which makes sense because the slider goes from 0 to 100, but the rotation wheel goes from 0 to 360 and is multiplied by X the times of rotation.

I checked this link and got an idea where to begin but I still can't figure it out.

I need to render the project by tomorrow and I've been crunching my brain into this but I don't see it. I would really appreciate it if anyone helps me out or at least point me out where to learn.

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

R
Community Expert
Rick GerardCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 14, 2019

Let's get a couple of things straight.

  1. When you use Convert Audio to Keyframes you get a new layer named Audio Amplitude that has Left, Right and Both Channels sliders. The range of these values is easily viewed using the Graph Editor with Edit Value Graph selected. Normal audio ranges are a lot less than 0 to 100 so you have to pick the maximum value you want to use.
  2. If you use just an interpolation method like linear(t, tMin, tMax, value1, value2) to drive rotation, no matter what you do this method will rotate a property back and forth. You cannot do cumulative rotations using this simple method
  3. If you are using the simple linear interpolation method then t would be the value of Both Sliders (or one of the other sliders) tMin would be the minimum value you get from the graph editor to start rotation, tMax would be the maximum you get from the graph editor for the maximum rotation of the layer, value1 would be the starting rotation value (something like zero) and value2 would be the maximum rotation value in degrees - like 180 or 720. It just depends on how much you want the rotation property to change when the audio amplitude increases.

That should give you an understanding of how the Interpolation Methods work in expressions.

 

If you want to have the rotation property increase every time the value of Both Channels goes up but not return to the original position when the audio levels drop you need a lot more complicated expression and it is going to be recursive, which means it will take longer to calculate the longer the layer is. If that is what you want, let us know Otherwise something like this should work:

t = thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider");
r = linear(t, 5, 25, 0, 55)

 

 

    D
    Demorae5C2F
    Known Participant
    July 16, 2021

    Hi I would like to know how to have the rotation property increase every time the value of Both Channels goes up but not return to the original position when the audio levels drop. What is the expression for this?

    R
    Community Expert
    Rick GerardCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 4, 2021

    Take a look at Dan Ebberts beat counter. 

     

    As it is written, every time the Both Channels slider value goes over 10 the value goes up by 1.  You could multiply the result by 10 to get the angle to increase 10º every time the value goes over 10.

     

    I don't have time to write an accumulator right now because I'm not very good at that part of javascript but this expression would only return positive values so that as the value of Both Channels goes up the value would change from 0 to a maximum of 90º but if the value goes down the value would be zero.

    ref = thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude");
t = ref.effect("Both Channels")("Slider");
tMin = 0;
tMax = 30;
value1 = 0;
value2 = 90;
r = linear(t, tMin, tMax, value1, value2);

if (t < t.valueAtTime(time - thisComp.frameDuration)){
	a = 0;
}
else{
	a = r;
}

    Combine that expression with an accumulator (value ++) like Dan's beat counter and you would have an expression that rotated a layer clockwise based on the audio level but never moved counterclockwise. 

     

    If Dan sees this post he will be able to combine the two ideas into some working code for you in a couple of minutes. I don't have the time to do it now because a quick search for "javascript accumulator" didn't give me a working solution.

    stib
    stib
    Inspiring
    September 13, 2019

    You can set the rotation to a number larger than one rotation just by setting it to the total number of degrees. So if you wanted three and a half rotations you'd set the rotation to <does mental arithmetic> 1260. In the UI it would say 3 + 180. So just multiply it by whatever you need.

    Mathias Moehl
    Community Expert
    Mathias MoehlCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 18, 2019

    Not really sure what you want to achieve, but if you want 2 full rotations (2*360 degrees), for example, you could do

    linear(value,50,55,0,2*360)

    Also note that my (paid) extension BeatEdit makes animating any properties to the beat much easier:

    https://aescripts.com/beatedit-for-after-effects/

    Here is an example

    Mathias Möhl - Developer of tools like BeatEdit and Automation Blocks for Premiere Pro and After Effects
    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices