EXPRESSIONS – industry standard ?! any good literature?

[Anonymous]

hi,
diggin deeper in the vaults of my compositing progs (AE and combustion) i ever-so-often come across expressions. since i used to do a lot of flash i am also keen to use these – i do it frequently as a matter of fact.
but i was wondering if expressions are used in the industry a lot? i mean, does it make sense to really get into expressions (apart from the benefits their usage offers), i.e. is this knowledge ‘valuable’?

if so, are there any in-depth books worth recommendation or shall i just stay with those heaps of generic javascript out there?

cheerio from nils

[Anonymous]

There are artists who live by expressions and those who never use them. As far as standards go I think you will find them similar enough that time spent on one will help you learn others… also frustrate you when you find variations in how things are done.

My advice is dig in when you need them, there are tons of resources on the web (type: expressions in the search box at left, type: after effects expressions into google… etc. and you will find quite a bit).

Also there is quite a bit on expressions in the Trish and Chris Meyer After Effects books, especially Volume 2: Advanced Techniques.

Jeff

[Anonymous]

thanks for that fast reply!
googling i found some really kickin ressources which really go into it. one of them is http://www.motionscript.com/index.html, another one is http://www.aenhancers.com.
i own meyers books and they are a great ressource, still i was wondering if there was literature focussing solely on expressions?
is it practice to use expressions in high-end solutions such as e.g. flame or inferno?

thanks again, nils

[John Montgomery]

framegod wrote:

is it practice to use expressions in high-end solutions such as e.g. flame or inferno?

thanks again, nils

I use them regularly in flame/inferno and, in fact, we devoted a section at an event we do at NAB to expressions. I wish they were more robust in inferno, since I’m a huge fan. I don’t think they’re a great replacement for natural movement, etc. However, for making timing adjustments and offsets as well as doing simple things like linking transparencies, they’re great.

They can be thought of as “power tools” but I think of them also as “lazy tools”. I just took over an After Effects project from someone. Each of the 15 titles in the spot were made up of two layers — and transparency was used to bring each up and off. The artist wasn’t using expressions to link the layers, so it was a pain to change all 30 when we adjusted timings. Simply linking transparency between the two text layers for each of the 15 titles made things so much easier to change.

Another guest speaker, Vico Sharabani also had some cool expressions examples he showed at the event. He’s got some PR here of a recent spot he did http://www.fxguide.com/press-194.html

[Author]

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