Music Beat Bar

Autodesk Smoke Tips & Tricks - Music Beat Bar

Here, i got 12 bars that needed to animate according to the music.

First, i loaded it 12 times, and cropped each one up.I hated to go around and searching for each media's crop to animate it. So, i created a new axis, and name it axisC01. I would used this axisC01 to control all medias' crop.

Media1 (1st left bar) crop top, enter expression : axisC01.position.x

Media2 (2nd left bar) crop top, enter expression : axisC01.position.y
Media3 crop top, enter expression : axisC01.position.z
Media4 crop top, enter expression : axisC01.rotation.x
Media5 crop top, enter expression : axisC01.rotation.y

....follow the above pattern until media12,

Media12 crop top, enter expression : axisC01.shearing.z

Then, i could use just axisC01 to control all my medias' crop. This was much easier to animate than taking the trouble to locate each media's crop.

I manually animated first bar's crop according to the music using axisC01 positionX.

I could do the same with other bar if i wanted to, just copy the animation value from positionX, then add a bit variation to each bar. But, i'm a lazy guy, so i let the expression do it.

In axisC01.position.y enter expression :

position.x + (noise(frame+1)*50)

In axisC01.position.z enter expression :

position.x + (noise(frame+2)*110)

In axisC01.rotation.x enter expression :
position.x + (noise(frame+3)*150)

....followed the same pattern until axisC01.shearing.z,

This way, each bar would have a bit of variation and random movement, but overall still followed the main bar's pattern. And if the music track change, i just need to animate back the 1st bar only.

Frame Counter

Autodesk Smoke Tips & Tricks : Frame Counter

Ready a clip, a 10 frame clips with 0 to 9 at the center of screen. Repeat the clip (Video - Repeat - Clip ) few times so it loop. Load it as media 4 times. Arange them side by side.

(Nota that media1 is 1st number, media2 is the 10th number, media3 is 100th number)

In media1, slip & matte slip enter expression :

frametoslip(floor((frame-1)/1))+1

In media2, slip & matte slip enter expression :

frametoslip(floor((frame-1)/10))+1

In media3, slip & matte slip enter expression :

frametoslip(floor((frame-1)/100))+1

Now, play the clip, the frame counter will count every frame. The reason the frame counter is one frame delay compare to the timebar because we start count from 000.

Wait a minute, what if you want to start the counter with 200 instead.



In media3, enter expression :

frametoslip(floor((frame+199)/100))+1

So, if you want 230, then in media2, expreesion :

frametoslip(floor((frame+29)/10))+1

Get the idea ? And don't forget to add some motion blur (see the previous tips random counter) .

There's even a more powerful frame counter technique, but no now, next time.

Random Counter

Autodesk Smoke Tips & Tricks - Random Counter

Ready a clip, a 10 frame clips with 0 to 9 at the center of screen.
Load it as media 4 times. Arange them side by side.In the media slip and matte slip of each media, enter expression :

frametoslip(truerand(1,10))

Play it, you will see the random numbers.Now, we add motion blur to it.

in media1 blur Y enter expression : media.media1.slip *10

in media2 blur Y enter expression : media.media2.slip *10

in media3 blur Y enter expression : media.media3.slip *10
in media4 blur Y enter expression : media.media4.slip *10

The final result,