Digital clock with changing numbers

JCook · Post by **JCook** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:11 pm

I need to make a small digital thermometer in an animation, so that the numbers in the readout will change quickly as something else is animated. It needs to go from 0 to 30, and then back down to 17, but also be controllable as to how fast the numbers change. My first thought about it was to make all the numbers from 0 to 30 as switch layers, and then animate them every couple of frames, so that, for example, on frame 1 the number would be 0, then at frame 3 the number would be 1, and so on. I'm wondering if anyone knows of an easier or quicker way to do it?

thanks,
Jack

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 11:12 pm

I think, but I'm not sure, that there is a script which automatically generate keys for a switch layer.
I'm not sure, but maybe it was made by Rylander.

PD:

Here you have
http://rylanderanimation.se/tag/anime-studio+scripts/
There is a script named loop switch, that should work.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 12:29 am

I'd do a switch layer for 0-9, then duplicate it.

If it's old-fashioned digital, I'd create a 7-elements LED (resembling the 8), then duplicate this layer 9 times and erase the shapes in each layer which don't belong to that number. Easy work.

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 7:03 am

Also you can use the papagayo file format to read the digits keyframes like a mouth switch. That would allow you to save the number animation in an external file and test different switch layers for the same clock animation.

-G

JCook · Post by **JCook** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 1:53 pm

Wow, so many responses so quickly! Thanks all of you. These are great suggestions. I'll be working on this today, so if I get it done I'll let you know how it comes out.

Jack

JCook · Post by **JCook** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 5:43 pm

This worked like a charm, using Rylander's Loop Switches script (thanks for that link, Selgin). I used a digital font in Illustrator, making the text 88°C and converting it to outlines. Then I imported it into ASPro and made copies of the layer, naming them for the numbers, and deleted the parts I didn't need (thanks for that suggestion, slowtiger). The only tricky part was figuring out the range and the interval for the switches so that it ended on the right numbers, but even that wasn't hard. So, I had a line on a graph representing temperature, and as it grew the numbers went from 0 to 30, held there, and then as the line came down again the numbers went in reverse from 30 to 17. Perfect.

I haven't tried the Papagayo method yet, but I'll look into it.

Thanks so much for your help, guys.

Jack