Prerequisites - Stuff you should know before attempting to follow through with this tutorial.
- Expression Basics including vector Math addition and subtraction
- Applying MotionMath (There's an Expression script provided below for those without the PB)
Things you'll need to work on the tutorial:
- Audio File (not included)
- A wide eye and a fresh pair of brains (no worries, I was merely referring to the left and right ones)
Today, we'll be creating an "as real as you want it to be" audio LED meter. This tutorial uses a number of Expressions that aren't that difficult. The interpolation script that I've used here was 'borrowed' from JJ Gifford's on-line site at http://www.jjgifford.com/expressions/basics/interpolation.html. You too can be decently successful in integrating some Expression scripts into your work. If you haven't done so yet, then I'm hopeful that this tutorial will help to get you started.
Another good reason to get into Expressions is that you can easily use a single Expression and apply it in many other ways to create other cool effects.
Let's begin by examining the 'physics' of an LED meter. It's made up of equal-sized discrete rectangles. The conventional LED meter is usually strung from bottom to top. A loud audio track will light up most of the rectangles, while a softer one will only light up those on the lower rungs. And if the audio file has a silent spot, then none of these rectangles will be lighted. Given these characteristics, we'll try to emulate this 'real-world' phenomenon. There are obviously other stylistic adaptations of an LED meter.
We'll need a few thingies - rectangles, an audio file, and not so obvious is a "controller" layer. The "controller" will accept audio level information from the audio file (via MotionMath Script, layeraud.mm - ships with the AE Production Bundle only). For those without the Production Bundle, all is not lost. You can use the following Expression to move the Controller along its y-axis.
//Start
(position[0].position.wiggle(3,200)[1])
//End of Expression
Checkout the AE manual for info on the wiggle function so that you can control the movement of the Controller better.
1) Create a new Comp (100 x 240)
2) Create an 80x4 pixel layer and name it "Controller" - Set its position to (70,120)
3) Create a 40x10 layer and name it "Rectangles" - Set its position to (50,235) so that it sits at the bottom of the Comp Window.
- We will be duplicating this layer once we've written the necessary Expressions
4) Drop your audio file into the timeline
Note - Ensure that all files start at the same point on the timeline.
5) Let's apply an Expression to our rectangle's opacity so that it's level at any point in time is dependent on the Y-POSITION of the "Controller" layer. To do this, apply an Expression to the opacity of layer "Rectangles". Type in the following -
PosA = position[1];
// this statement creates a variable, PosA, that refers to this layer's y-position
CntrlPos = this_comp.layer("Controller").position[1];
// this statement creates a variable, CntrlPos, that refers to the "Controller"'s y-position
delta = sub(PosA,CntrlPos);
// this statement creates a variable, delta, that subtracts the current layer's position from that of the Controller layer.
distance = length(delta);
// this statement creates a variable, distance, that returns the result of the delta = ... statement.
length is a built-in Expression function that calculates distances
if (delta>0)
opacity = 100
// This section of the "if ... else" conditional statement checks to see if the Controller is higher (y-position) than the current active layer. If the controller is higher, ie. closer to the bottom of the comp, then the current layer's opacity should be set to 100%. Remember that AE calculates [x,y] positions starting from the top left-hand corner of a Comp Window. It's a little counter-intuitive, so sketch out the problem to have a better idea of what's going on here.
else
linear(distance, 0, 30, 100, 40)
//if the first line is not true, then we'll apply a linear interpolation between the distance of layer Controller and the current layer. Basically we're remapping the values of the distance between the two layers and applying the result towards our opacity. This is done in a linear fashion. To ease in, use the following line instead:
ease_in(distance, 0, 30, 100, 40)
When the distance is 0, the opacity of our rectangles will be 100%. When the difference is 30 or more, then the opacity will be set at 30%. This ensures that our rectangles will have an opacity value of at least 30% at all times. If you want the rectangles to be totally off until it's 'hit' by the controller then simply change the last line to - linear(distance,0,30,100,0).
6) The Expression in its entirety reads as such;
PosA = position[1];
CntrlPos = this_comp.layer("Controller").position[1];
delta = sub(PosA,CntrlPos);
distance = length(delta);
if (delta>0)
opacity = 100
else
linear(distance,0,30,100,40)
7) Now, mass-duplicate the layer "Rectangles" and offset each one to create a ladder of rectangles.
8) To test our script, we'll manually move the y-position of our Controller layer. Open up the position parameter in your timeline for the Controller layer by selecting the layer and pressing the "P" key. Now manually move the Controller up along the y-position. Alternatively, you can select the Controller (object) in the Comp Window, depress the Shift Key (to restrict the movement to the y-axis) to physically move it along the y-axis. As you do so, you should notice that the opacity of each rectangle reacts to the movement of the Controller.
9) With everything in place, we'll now apply MotionMath script, layeraud.mm, to the Controller layer's y-position. You may have to finesse the min. and/or max. ranges within the layeraud.mm script to fine-tune the results.
Start with a min. setting of 240 (the lowest point in our 100x240) comp and max. setting of 0 - the highest point in our comp. Yep, that's right, we have to reverse the min. and max. settings - again to take into account the fact that AE calculates position starting at (0,0) from the top left hand corner of your comp.
Tip: If the Controller's motion path is bunched up within the middle of the comp, you can spread it out easily by changing the min. to a number higher than 240 and setting the max. to less than 0. And if the the top of the motion path maxes out too soon, you'll only have to change the max. setting to a lower number. This will 'stretch' the motion path while retaining the lower values.
10) You can dress up the rectangles with glows, bevels, textures - whatever your fancy is. I've included a tiny section from my partially completed demo reel as an example of how else to use the same Expression you've seen here. Pay attention to the red areas at top left and bottom right of the movie. Notice how the red buttons (Controller Layers) highlight the different rectangles as it moves up and down their respective y-axes. Each rectangle has a different word written on it. Instead of using an audio file to drive the button, I simply wrote an Expression to wiggle the button along the y-axis. Take a look by clicking on the graphic below.
That's it for now. Have fun and as always, God Bless.
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Roland is a leader in the Adobe After Effects forum at CreativeCow.net.
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