Tag Archives: After Effects Expressions
Creating a Rocket Ship Trail of Letters
In this QuickTip, I’ll guide you through the set-up and expressions required to emit a paragraph of letters from a moving After Effects layer.
After Effects Expressions
Targeted at the designer, this 3 hour series teaches you how to use expressions in every day projects. This series has quickly become the go-to place to efficiently learn After Effects Expressions! Includes all project files and a Quick Reference PDF to aid in learning.
The six lessons are as follows:
- Introduction to Expressions
- Introduction to Arrays and Variables
- 3D Text: Arrays and variables continued
- Random Numbers and Text Strings
- Expression Control, Randomness and Probability
- Audio to Keyframes
DOWNLOAD ONLY | $39.99 (3 hours)
Creating a “Draft Switch” for Form
When working with high particle counts in Trapcode Form, the only thing that will speed things up is a lower number of particles. Creating an Expression Checkbox as an “on-off” switch for this is a efficient way to manage render times when working with Form. Here is the expression used:
s = effect("Checkbox Control")("Checkbox");
if (s==1) value/4 else value
Make sure to add a checkbox control from the expression control effects.
AutoSlideShow Presets
These two After Effects expressions are pretty simple, but they make slide show projects a breeze!! The first, “AutoZoom”, makes a layer zoom (scale) based on the in and out points of the layer.The “zoom” value, is how much it zooms. Positive or negative values will both work.
Next, AutoFade creates fades on head and tail of any clip. The transition is specified in the “transition” variable, which is defined in frames. Note: Presentation is audio only.
Null Controlled Form
One of the challenges when using Trapcode Form is that it is so similar and yet so different from the very popular Trapcode Particular. With Form, having a “source point” is a bit of a challenge, because position is based on the center of the shape.
I’ve set up a sample project here where the location and spherical field make the Form strings guided by a Null object, making it a little easier to control for some situations.