how do I make a flashing red light in after effects

S

sean90291

Veteran
What's the easiest way to create a repetitive animation in After Effects? I'm looking to create a "flashing light" that goes on and off at precisely regular intervals. It's actually supposed to be the "recording indicator" on a camcorder LCD screen. I could create a red button and make it go on and off and then copy and paste those keyframes over and over...but I am sure there's a better way.

Also looking for a way to fake a time code read out in After Effects. Again, its' for the faked camcorder LCD data.

Any advice appreciated!

Cheers.
 
Take some time to go through the effects...there are some simple solutions in there. Look up info on the loop expression as well. Both tasks are relatively simple and can be easily accomplihed with a little research.
 
Aha! Loop expression, that sounds promising. I'll check it out. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. That probably won't create timecode though. But I'll start looking into that for the flashing light.
 
Man, do this to get it

Layer-New Solid

Make a circle mask. Make it red. Easy enough?

Now, go to your opactiy. Add a keyframe on frame 1

Scrub down to say frame 30 (about a second) and make your opacity to 0.

Now if you play it, you get a smoth motion of the circle fading out.

ALT CLICK on that stop watch, and type this in the blue highlighted area

loopOut(type="cycle")

NOW play it...Throught out the duration of your timeline, your circle will be looping itself from red, to black.
 
I was suggesting an easier way via the effects menu. There are actually 2 effects that do both the tasks you require without any expressions, etc. Expressions are one way of doing it, but there is an effect called Strobe Light in the Stylize menu and an effect called Timecode in the Text menu. From what I can remember, neither of these need to be keyframed to work, just apply and press 0 to preview.
 
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