Configurable Timers - After Effects Tutorial

[@HolmesMotion]

BASIC STANDALONE Timer Script (no essential graphics required) (add this to your SourceText property) // set the start time startTime = 50 // calculate the current time currentTime = startTime - time; // stop current time going below 0 if(currentTime < 0) { currentTime = 0; } // format the time formattedTime = timeToTimecode(currentTime); start = 0 end = 10 newTime = formattedTime.substring(start,end); ADVANCED Timer script (you will need to change the links to target your own layers, not a simple copy and paste unlike the above) // set the start time startTime = thisComp.layer("timer controls").effect("startTime")("Slider"); // calculate the current time currentTime = startTime - time; // stop current time going below 0 if(currentTime < 0) { currentTime = 0; } // format the time formattedTime = timeToTimecode(currentTime); start = thisComp.layer("timer controls").effect("startDigit")("Slider"); end = thisComp.layer("timer controls").effect("endDigit")("Slider"); newTime = formattedTime.substring(start,end);

[@annamaltseva6589]

If anyone needs the time to go forwards, here is a modified version of the script // set the start time startTime = 0 // calculate the current time currentTime = startTime + time; // stop current time going above 0 if(currentTime > 30) { currentTime = 0; } // format the time formattedTime = timeToTimecode(currentTime); start = 0 end = 30 newTime = formattedTime.substring(start,end);

[@Skillet45]

Wow. Fantastic tutorial, and loved the "bonus" instructions on how to make it configurable and user friendly. Excellent information, no fluff, straight to the point, outstanding. Thanks!

[@jherem]

this expression not works for me, my timer always is in Zero, I try set the slider but my timer is zero.

[@akashbajay]

Same issue here

[@rastapo]

same here too

[@KLIP-studio]

Same here

[@ocbb-s8f]

it's because in newer versions of after effects "startTime" is no variable, just change it to whatever you want (for example: timeStart) in the script and it will work

[@ДанилГапонов-ц3ш]

@@ocbb-s8f you saved my live

[@sam_0w0.r4]

Hello! thank you for the tutorial. How can I make the miniseconds scroll completely? Because it is only a route from 10 to 20 and then it would only be numbers like: 29:23, 10:20, etc... I don't know if you understand me :( I want my timer to have numbers like: 20:97, 15:86, 24:55 so when I pause the timer i will show the mini seconds right! English is not my native language :(

اي وانا عم دور على نفس الشغلة

kzbin.info/www/bejne/nWOrfYSDpK2WnMU

[@adrianrey8270]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qIC6gqd6j7Wkl6ssi=VcRgivETdMFF6C49

[@stardust1668]

this is the best countdown tutorial I've ever seen!! really appreciate it👍👍👍

[@sturdyboneswoodworking]

Thanks for this tutorial! Your explanation was super helpful. Its been ages since I've worked in AE and you made this project look simple.

[@itsmusic2046]

hey thanks for tutorial but i want my timer to start with 3:29 and end at 0 how what tweaks i do in your provided file ? i am new to after effect so please dont mind that

[@DeepFriedOreoOffline]

Thank you so much for making this video! I have been browsing Motion Array for like an hour trying to find a simple timer , that I can change the font, that allows for customizing the time, and it's impossible to find! The closest I got, which I do have to say looked really cool, came with a help file that simply said "This is easy to customize :)" and then links to images they used in their promotional video... You know things are getting bad when you can save time over spending money by watching a video... But I digress. Life saver! To give a little back for anyone who sees this, you can make it a little easier to customize the timer in Premiere by multiplying the startTime variable by 60. So when you go to customize your start time, you can just set the minutes :)

[@HolmesMotion]

Good stuff!

[@126productions8]

@holmes Motion, is there anyway to make the milliseconds go to 99 instead of 29? Thanks a lot, Nick

[@chtdkmn]

Hi! What should i do for export 45:00 min? Because when i setup everything on timer its counting down 45:00 but when i export it's only show 2 min countdown on video. Do you know why?

[@riffbaama]

Your composition must be 45 : 00 mins too

[@MadGenious]

What if i want to have different Font for Numbers and Colons?

[@henrikappel6096]

I want to use the Hundredths as well for a sport thing, but the numbers only goes to 30 and then one sek. Can I add any script to fixt this for the last Digit? and thanks for a great video!!

[@tobiasmoes6342]

This is awesome, thanks! The problem I have is that my miliseconds start at 29. Do you know how to solve this? It also runs twice as fast as it should.

[@HolmesMotion]

Hard to diagnose on here, but if you reply to this comment with the script for your timer I'll try and take a look !

[@tobiasmoes6342]

​@@HolmesMotion Thanks for helping. Maybe it has something to do with the framerate, which is 50. This is the script: startTime = thisComp.layer("Timer controls").effect("startTime")("Slider"); currentTime = startTime - time; if(currentTime < 0) { currentTime = 0 } formattedTime = timeToTimecode(currentTime) start = thisComp.layer("Timer controls").effect("startDigit")("Slider"); end = thisComp.layer("Timer controls").effect("endDigit")("Slider"); newTime = formattedTime.substring(start, end);

[@mehere8565]

@@tobiasmoes6342 those are frames not milliseconds -- 30 FPS I would love to know how to display milliseconds

[@brokenbulb971]

The milliseconds going from 0 to 30. How do I make them go from 0 to 100 or 99?

[@baptistelebrun2909]

do you have an answer for this question please ?

[@Ilovepapayas]

Thank you for this very useful and good tutorial! Exactly what I needed, perfect on point, all informations very useful. Thumbs up!

[@riffbaama]

how to configure hours and minutes? PLEASE!!

[@xanderneal]

Hey! This is great! However I'm struggling with a couple parts, when I add the pickwhip to the slider, nothing changes when I adjust the slider? Any ideas what I did wrong?

[@avmprod]

Awesome! But how to edit the script to get 90 minutes countdown, showing minutes only? With this code I can get 59 min. max.

[@joshcashman8554]

Thank you so much! Any reason why tbe clock doesn't seem to want to go over 17 hours? I have the range set correctly, but when I place it above 17 hours, I get a bunch of zeros and negative numbers

[@andreykochergin]

same sht

[@andreykochergin]

Did you solve this problem? I need a timer that starts from 23:59:59

[@samhnns6372]

I'm not able to drag the settings to the essential graphics... it just won't

[@Benjamin-nn5qy]

What if I am not using a mono spaced font? is there a way to prevent it from jumping around??? appreciate any help

[@HolmesMotion]

Not that I know of im afraid ! Unless you somehow seperated each digit to its own layer and wrote an expression to make that work. But even then the spacing would look weird

[@adrianrey8270]

@@HolmesMotion The answer would be to use the paragraph "Left align text"

[@HolmesMotion]

@@adrianrey8270 it would still jump around. It would just be fixed to the left and the jumping would occur on the right hand side. The only real answer is mono spaced font afaik

[@adrianrey8270]

I did it today and it wasn’t jumping around, ( with minutes seconds and frames) and the font isn’t mono space

[@HolmesMotion]

@@adrianrey8270 are you sure? I mean the font must be mono spaced even if not labelled as such. The jumping around must happen if different numbers take up different widths in the font file. Maybe try a few different fonts to test

[@noraramirez1263]

what do I set my start time if I want it to countdown for 1 hour

[@alynhorton]

There's no clear explanation on how to configure the timer or adjust the start/end digits. The numbers being entered on the screen do not correspond to the numbers in the countdown clock. Please show an example i.e. this is how you show a countdown from 10 minutes in minutes, seconds and miliseconds? Thanks

[@chuyenlatvat1468]

This is such a good tutorial video. But I got a problem when setting millisecond countdown. It just starts from 29 instead of 59. I have checked my expression and nothing unusual. I also took a look at your proj file and the problem happened too.

[@HolmesMotion]

Try setting the framerate of your composition to 60 frames per second instead !

[@chuyenlatvat1468]

@@HolmesMotion i tried but nothing happened xD. maybe something wrong with my After Effects version

[@mashby100]

THIS IS SO USEFUL!

[@malcolmking4082]

you the man holmes!

[@HolmesMotion]

No YOU the man

[@beauxnouveaux]

How do you increase the speed of the timer?

[@rotk]

Practically, you shouldn't need to because time only goes one speed. However, if you're animating it to give the illusion time is going by faster then you could probably add a slider control next to the 'time' in the expression so that you can animate the speed of the time. Just a thought. Maybe someone could correct me if there's an easier or more practical way to increase the speed of time.

[@8tdesign]

Thank you. worked great for my sports content

[@jorrge]

Hey! thanks for the tut! I have a question if you don't mind: I want my timer to end at a certain time (for example, when finishing a race in a karting track). I managed to create the timer as you did and tweaked so that it goes from 0 to infinity, but can't figure out how to stop it at certain time.

[@HolmesMotion]

Just edit the if statement to be something like if(currentTime >= targetTime) { currentTime = targetTime } and then define targetTime as whatever number you want it to stop at

[@ELECTROMIST]

needed this thanks ❤️

[@HolmesMotion]

You are welcome my friend!

[@codeit6418]

Bro, Thank you so much. good to understand.

[@tenden2566]

How do I make it work the other way around? thanks

[@HolmesMotion]

You mean so it's counts up instead of down ?

[@tenden2566]

@@HolmesMotion Yes)

[@HolmesMotion]

@@tenden2566 I think set startTime to 0, then instead of 'startTime - time' do 'startTime + time'

[@mauroubel]

Really great stuff!

[@HolmesMotion]

glad you found it useful!

[@Pav_mak]

огромное спасибо чел, лучший просто, остальные просто хер че бъяснили ты лучший

[@aviban69]

this the expretion for time up and i find some Mastak you do start time need to be 0 end time need to be the how mach frame in sec startTime = 0; currenttime =startTime + time; formattedTime = timeToTimecode(currenttime); start = 0; end = 29.97; newTime = formattedTime.substring(start, end);

[@roguescorner9042]

On my end, milliseconds seem to only go up to 30 when they should be going up to 99.

[@galacticdrum311]

Your timer starts to count down from 50 and is positive. My timer defaults to counting upward starting from zero and is also negative. Do you know why? This is also effecting my formattedTime.substring code because the negative is counting as a start/end position.

[@unrealengineruseng9583]

Thank you very very much !

[@motifixer]

Cool! Thank you))

[@Brandonbraun]

THANK YOU

[@Precinoto]

man, thank you, THANK YOU, you saved me

[@HolmesMotion]

Glad it helped !

[@Precinoto]

@@HolmesMotion my client ended up deciding not to use the result, but you helped me putting a timer in a 9+ multicam racing timer... thank you so much bro, for real

[@HolmesMotion]

@@Precinoto awesome!

[@samehamer.]

شكرا جزيلا

[@MaxHackCrack]

Gracias, buen tutorial, lo leí subtitulado

[@KLIP-studio]

Thanks for nothing

[@NosferatuG59]

Why is this so overly complex jesus christ

[@HolmesMotion]

It's complex to create a fully configurable timer. If you want something simple you can use the Numbers effect on a solid I think

[@ActionPlanet]

Thank you very much!!