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Kany5CCF
Known Participant
January 2, 2023
Question

Is there a way to automate message animations?

  • January 2, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 414 views

This is a bit hard to explain and I'm not sure how to link a project here, and I apolgize if it's a dumb question, lol.

 

I have an 'automated message' animation that I'm using to show the lyrics of a song and who is singing along with it. In pictures, here's roughly what it looks like : 

 

 

As you can see, one bubble containing the first line of text pops up, and another bubble pops up after it, pushing the first bubble up (I did this by parenting the first bubble to the second so they move together). This will continue on as the song progresses, like how Spotify and Apple Music do with their lyrics. To roughly complete one song, it takes me about an hour and thirty minutes.

 

As I was editing, I was wondering if there was some way that I could make this more automated, because I manually have to keep making more bubbles of different sizes. I also have to manually change the source codes of each bubble (so that the size of the bubble changes with the size and length of the text in that particular bubble). It's a pretty tedious process that I wanted to shorten. I hope this makes sense!

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1 reply

Dan Ebberts
Community Expert
Dan EbbertsCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 2, 2023

I'd probably be tempted to do it with a script that reads a data file with the timing. lyric, and singer info--maybe a CSV file. I'd probably have it create lyric markers with expressions to control the timing, that way you could tweak the timing by moving the markers around.

Depending on what form your data's in, you might also be abled to do it with just expressions and a CSV data file, where you just have to duplicate  the bubbles until you have enough.

So, I think you could automate a lot--it just depends on how many of these you need to do and how much effort you're willing to put into it.

    K
    Kany5CCFAuthor
    Known Participant
    January 3, 2023

    That makes sense, thank you! Do you know of any resources I could use that could help me get started, as I'm not sure how I would format the lyrics in a CSV file or make it turn out the way I look like.

    ShiveringCactus
    Community Expert
    ShiveringCactusCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 3, 2023

    You can set up a pretty simple spreadsheet, with each lyric line being it's own row and then import this into After Effects.

    This is a really simple version which uses a slider to switch from one lyric to the next:

    var slider = Math.floor(effect("Slider Control")("Slider"));
txt = thisComp.layer("lyric.csv")("Data")("Outline")("Lyric")("Lyric "+slider);

     

     

     

     

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