blinking light

[Eric2575]

As it stands, I added 10 key frames to a clip, one every second, and alternated 0 and 100% for the ambiance settings of a model bulb. Setting the interpolation to "hold" gave the quick blink. Clumsy, but it works. Never having used expressions before, could someone give me an idea of how to do this over a 10 second clip? This would be more elegant than keyframing, especially if I wanted to do this for a longer clip.

 

Thanks

[NancyGormezano]

If you are really wanting to learn how to do expressions - then ignore the following:

 

But perhaps do it in an action? then you can control the cycle time, and number of repeats for many different situations

[KenH]

Yeah, why would length make a difference. You could even just copy your already existing keyframes.

For an expression, you'd use a Sine wave. I'm not sure exactly of the formula though.

[Darkwing]

The Dave Rogers book has a whole chapter on relationships and expressions, I could look and see if he says anything, but when I read the book, I just skipped thaqt chapter because that stuff was WAY to complex for me!!

[Eric2575]

I thought if I used an expression, I wouldn't have to worry about keying all those frames and manually updating the on/off properties?

 

It doesn't matter if it's an expression or not, just the most economic way to turn properties on/off over a given length of time.

 

Wouldn't the use of an action also require manual updating of all the settings? I wanted to automate that if possible.

[NancyGormezano]

Wouldn't the use of an action also require manual updating of all the settings? I wanted to automate that if possible.

 

It wouldn't matter how long your action was (could make it 2 frames if you want with just 2 keyframes: 0 % ambiance & 100 % ambiance) - you would adjust the # of repeats, and the cycle length of the action after you dragged it into the chor. So if you wanted it to repeat every 10 frame, for 200 frames then set the cycle length to 10 - and the # of repeats =20. (200 frames total).

 

Similarly, if you wanted a longer cycle & wanted it to repeat every 40 frames for 200 frames - then set cycle length to 40, repeat = 5 (total # frames = 200)

[Eric2575]

I'll try that out right now. Thank you Nancy!

[Luuk Steitner]

You can do it Nancy's way but still it's always good to learn expressions

 

If you add this expression to your ambiance setting it will blink: If(Sin(ChorTime()*10)>0,1,0)

The '10' stands for the speed, if you increase that number the speed in increase.

The first '0' is the range the sin function runs from -1 to 1 so if the value is 0, the light will be on 50% of the cycle. If you want it to light for 10% of the cycle the expression would be: If(Sin(ChorTime()*10)>0.8,1,0)

 

I hope this is clear enough

[Eric2575]

Thank you Luuk, I will also give this a try. What resource did you use to learn about expressions?

[Eric2575]

Using Actions per Nancy

 

blinking light

 

Sorry, I'll get that link working in a sec - fixed!

 

Anyone know of a FREE web space provider that has more than 10 GB of storage?

[NancyGormezano]

yup - yah sure, you betcha - that's a blinking light, alright

[Luuk Steitner]

Thank you Luuk, I will also give this a try. What resource did you use to learn about expressions?

 

I don't remember what resource I used at the time but you can take a look at this tutorial.

I think that'll get you started, it isn't that hard...