Audio to Animation Tutorial

After gushing over all the tutorials on the site, I wanted to try the Audio to Animation Tutorial. It pretty much works just like an I-Tunes visualizer. Despite that, it is an amazing thing to learn for a number of reasons. For one, it gives some good practice with learning a few expressions in after effects. For it to work, I converted an audio file to keyframes, created two null objects from the audio file (one for bass and one for treble,) then created two solids that used the Trapcode:Particular plugin to create a particle effect that moved based on the audio's bass and treble.

I went ahead and downloaded the free version of the Trapcode: Particular plugin that was used in the tutorial just because I thought it would be a great thing to learn... even if I did not have the money to buy it myself. It puts a giant x on the screen unfortunately.

Video Copilot Tutorial Response: Audio to animation from Michael Shaw on Vimeo.

However, while i haven't figured out a way to get the exact effect without the plugin yet, (maybe use the pen tool to create a set of points?) i was able to use the tutorial to create the same effect with a masked solid.

Audio to Animation tutorial from Michael Shaw on Vimeo.

The greatest thing i probably learned from this tutorial is that the values of one layer's attributes can be set to match the values of another layer's attributes. Beyond that, there is so much potential for creating animations based solely on a soundtrack.

What is even more amazing is that this opens up a world of possibilities for direct lip syncing that could save me a bunch of time.