Creating an Animated Volume Meter

Part One: Creating the Volume Meter

Create a 320*240 composition.

Import three solids: red, yellow, and green, each the size of 50*70 and arrange them as a volume meter:

Now we need to give it the look of real volume meter. Let's pre-compose the three solids, by selecting them, and pressing Ctrl+Alt+C and choose the option “move all attributes into the new composition” and name it volume meter.
Import a new solid the size of the composition and lay it over our new pre-composition.

On this new solid we’ll apply the grid effect, from the Render group. Give the Border the value 4, and the corner the value 226, 128, so there are no vertical lines over our volume meter.

Change the track matte of the volume meter layer to "Alpha inverted matte" and you'll get something like this:

Now again, precompose the two Layers, let's name them volume meter (again) and apply the Glow Effect from the Stylize group, and we have our volume meter.

Part two: let it move!

We need this volume meter to respond to music, lets import a sound file, drag it to time line, and then right click it.

From keyframe assistant choose "convert Audio to keyframes" and you'll have a new layer called "Audio Amplitude". Click the small triangle on the next to the layer, choose effects, then click the triangle next to "both channels" you'll see a stop watch next to the word "slider". keep it opened, because we'll need it soon.

On the volume meter layer, apply the Linear wipe effect from the transition group, make the wipe angle 180.

Alt click the stop watch of the "transition complete" and drag the pick whip from transition complete to the slider in the Audio Amplitude Layer:

You'll notice that this is not the result you wanted as the red area is moving slowly and in the opposite direction.

Let's correct this by going to the transition complete, where we see the following expression written:

thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider")

Press the expression -so you can edit it- and at the end of it write *-2+100, so our new expression will be:

thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider")*-2+100

If you don't care to know what this addition did, it's ok but if you do, here's what happened:

When we gave a transition angle of 180, we meant that we wanted the transition to be from up to down, then we linked it to the audio keyframes. The problem with those keyframes is that when there is no sound, they have the value of zero, and they have greater value when the sound is louder. So, by adding 100 to the transition, it makes the transition has a 100% value when there is no sound, by multiplying it with a minus number, it moves. Let's say that the music keyframe has the value of three, the result of the transition will be: 3*-2+100=94.

Why -2 and not -1? Because the differences between keyframes values are very small, so we have to "amplify" these differences by multiplying them.. you can try other numbers, but the result will be very extreme and not realistic.

Part three: 3d it...

Our job is technically done, but we still can add some fun to our composition.

Create a new composition, and drag comp1 to it. Duplicate it three times, so we have four copies of it. Name the layers: front, back, left right, and turn them into 3d layers.

Give the four layers the following transform values:

front: change the y position to 95
back: change the z position to 50, change the y position to 95
right: give the y rotation a value of 90 degrees and the x position the value of 185, change the y position to95.
left: give the y rotation a value of 90 degrees and the x position the value of 135,change the y position to 95.
now add a new layer, make it 3D layer. give it the following values: position values: 170,203,0

Add a new spot light, with the option cast shadow turned on. from the material option of each layer, activate the cast shadow option.

Add a new camera, and add the following expression to the position property of the camera: [Math.sin(time)*z,y,Math.cos(time)*z]

where z is the zoom value of the camera, and y is y position of the targeted layers, in our case the expression goes like this:

[Math.sin(time)*507,120,Math.cos(time)*507]

You'll notice that the camera is now moving in a circle around our volume meter.

Top 25 InDesign Tips

25. Keyboard shortcuts for applying styles can only be composed of a modifier key (Cmd/Ctrl, Opt/Alt, etc.) plus a number from the numeric keypad.
Sandee Cohen, Supercharged Style Sheets

24. If Caps Lock is activated when you insert placeholder text, a different passage of Latin will be used.
David Blatner & Sandee Cohen, Essential Tips & Tricks

23. InDesign will automatically update a linked image after it has been edited using Edit Original within InDesign.
David Blatner, Making The Most of The Suite

22. Cmd-Option-C (Ctrl-Alt-C) is the keyboard shortcut for fitting a frame to content.
David Blatner & Sandee Cohen, Essential Tips & Tricks

21. Tables can be nested and table cells can be merged or divided in many combinations.
Diane Burns, Make Tables Work For You

20. Press “w” to enter Preview mode, which displays the document as it would be printed.
David Blatner & Sandee Cohen, Essential Tips & Tricks

19. Placed TIFF and PSD images do not preserve vectors; EPS and PDF do.
David Blatner, Making The Most of The Suite

18. You can drag and drop files from the Finder/Windows desktop or windows to the Book palette.
Robin Williams, Long Document Techniques

17. Guides cannot be duplicated by Option-dragging, but can be duplicated with Edit –> Duplicate or Edit –> Step and Repeat.
Pariah Burke, Where Text Meets Graphics

16. It’s easier to work with Book files from the Book palette than by opening the file itself.
Robin Williams, Long Document Techniques

15. Multiple undos can undo actions executed before a subsequent save.
David Blatner & Sandee Cohen, Essential Tips & Tricks

14. The Autocorrect preferences in InDesign allows you to customize what InDesign flags for correction.
Pariah Burke, Cool Text Techniques

13. Hold Shift while selecting a print, document or PDF preset (from their respective menu items in the File menu) to execute the preset without dialog boxes.
David Blatner & Sandee Cohen, Essential Tips & Tricks

12. Use the Absolute Page Numbering preference to work with a multi-section InDesign document in terms of absolute page numbers.
Sandee Cohen, Fundamentals of Document Construction

11. The Text Wrap palette can accept negative values, creating text overlap of a specific value.
Pariah Burke, Where Text Meets Graphics

10. In long documents, the more master pages you use the better.
Sandee Cohen, Fundamentals of Document Construction

9. Press Cmd/Ctrl-Enter to open Quick Apply, where you can type any letters in a style’s name to apply that style to text or objects.
Sandee Cohen, Supercharged Style Sheets

8. The Underline Options in the Character palette flyout menu allows for customized underline styles.
Pariah Burke, Cool Text Techniques

7. Book Page Numbering Options can set chapters to always begin on odd (right-facing) pages.
Robin Williams, Long Document Techniques

6. All tables are anchored inside a text frame.
Diane Burns, Make Tables Work For You

5. Distilling PDFs through Adobe Acrobat Distiller will flatten transparencies.
Claudia McCue, Fast & Sure, The PDF Workflow

4. When creating a Table of Contents, “Create PDF Bookmarks” will hyperlink TOC entries to corresponding pages. The hyperlinks do not show up in InDesign, but will when the file is exported as a PDF.
Robin Williams, Long Document Techniques

3. The TIFF file format can hold any kind of data the PSD file format can, but it is non-proprietary and can also be compressed for smaller file sizes.
David Blatner, Making The Most of The Suite

2. PDF/X-1a is the best PDF format to get quality output for print.
Claudia McCue, Fast & Sure: The PDF Workflow

1. Preflight early and often, using InDesign’s Transparency Preview and Flattener Previews as well as Acrobat 7 Professional’s Print Production tools.
Claudia McCue, Fast & Sure: The PDF Workflow

Courtesy of quarkvsindesign.com

Achieve photorealism with Gradient Mesh

To create a Gradient Mesh object, choose the Mesh tool from the Toolbox and click any vector path in your document. You don’t draw Gradient Mesh objects from scratch in Illustrator; you convert existing vector shapes to mesh objects. Each click with the Mesh tool adds additional mesh points to the mesh object. You’ll also notice that as you add mesh points to an object, the paths that connect the mesh points match the contours of the object.

In this example of using a circle, notice how the mesh points that are added create curved paths, not straight ones.

Once you have mesh points defined, you can switch to the Direct Selection tool and select each individual mesh point to adjust its position and its direction handles.


Editing a mesh point is no different than editing an anchor point.

With a mesh point selected, you can choose a color from the Control, Swatches, or Color palette to define the color for that point. Each mesh point can contain only one color. Each mesh point’s direction handles and paths define how its color blends with other colors from other mesh points.


The paths that connect the mesh points define how colors blend and the shapes and contours of the gradient.

As needed, you can switch back to the Mesh tool and click to add additional mesh points.

You can also create a gradient mesh from an existing vector object. With the object selected, choose Object > Create Gradient Mesh. You can then choose how many rows or columns you want in the mesh, and if the object is filled with a color, you can specify a highlight towards the center or the edge of the object. Once the gradient mesh is created, you can continue to tweak it using the methods mentioned previously.

Note: If you converted a path to a mesh object and then want to get the path back, you can select the mesh object and use the Offset Path function with a setting of 0. This action creates a new path that you can edit and color as you wish.

Courtesy of the Adobe Blog!

Dreamweaver Tutorial to open new windows using 'Open Browser Window' Behavior

To create a pop-up window for any link, create the link (either text / image) using '#', select it and then open the Behaviors panel (Shift+F3).

Click the Add (+) button and select 'Open Browser Window' from the Actions pop-up menu.

Select the URL to be opened and set the window properties, say width, height, attributes (Navigation toolbar, Location toolbar, Status bar, Menu bar, Scrollbars as needed, Resize handles) and a name.

To edit a pop-up window, select the link and then double-click the 'Open Browser Window' in the Actions column of the Behaviors panel to make the necessary changes.

Save and test your file in a web browser. That's is how to create pop-up windows using Dreamweaver Behaviours.

Creating a Custom Drop Shadow

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THIS IS A SIMPLE WALK-THROUGH for producing drop shadows by hand. In some cases you'll want to know and understand this process because you'll need a shadow that does not "drop" from the entire object, or one that you can manipulate as a separate object rather than part of the layer as in the Drop-Shadow layer effect.

This is an object, rastered on its own layer.

The first thing we'll do is duplicate that object to another new layer.
* Drag the layer to the "New Layer" icon at the bottom of the layers palette, or,
* Use the "Float" command: Command/J, or Control/J for Windows.

Next: Select the layer original object layer
* Command/click the layer thumbnail (Control/Click for Windows)

Now your object is selected on the bottom layer.
Tap the letter D to change colors to default
Tap Option/Delete (Alt/Delete for Windows) to fill the object
(Racing ants, the dotted line around the object signifies it is selected)

In this capture, you'll see the object is now filled with the foreground color (Black) even though you can't see it because it's behind (or beneath) the White object on the next layer.

Tap Command/D (Control/D) to drop any selections
Choose: Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur
and in the resulting dialog box, set the amount of blur to result in the desired amount of shadow.

Here, we've created the blur than selected the Move tool (Tap V) to "nudge" the shadow to its new location. (In this example, we went 12 pixels right, and 12 pixels down. Your own project may be different. )

Thanks to the guys here http://www.photoshop911.com/tricks/drop_shadows/index.html