We’ve all been faced with this dilemma… You return from vacation with 2000 photos and dread having to edit them, especially since every photo is a prized capture that the world HAS to see. This is where the Turbo Slideshow comes in. With the aid of a couple of scripts, you can have all 2000 synced to music in a matter of minutes… and speaking of a matter of minutes… that is all it will take to see all the photos! It’s a win win situation for everyone.
Requirements
- Audio2Markers
- PhotoOrientationFixer
- Fit2Frame
- Any Song (Be The One by The Ting Tings used in demo)
- How to install scripts
You will also need a bunch of photos. Plus Members don’t even get access to Lloyd’s personal photos…sorry! But, if you want the AE Project Files and assets for all of the other tutorials on Aetuts+ you can join Ae Plus for just $9/month. You can view the final effect preview video below.
Overview
- Core Training Value: How to create a turbo slideshow to show all the 2000 photos you took on your last vacation in a few minutes.
- Difficulty: Advanced
Preview
Download Preview .flv
File size 7.1MB
Tutorial
Download Tutorial .flv
File size 143MB
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By Lloyd
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man its 5 in the morning… i need to get some rest. too much computer… By the way, whats up Alvarez
Great nice tuts
what’s the special here?
everyone can do that right?
Correct, but not many can script it.
i can agree with ur comment,
You can definitely do this by hand but it will take you a very long time
The whole idea here is to be able to do something that is entertaining with a minimal amount of effort.
Choose the right tool.. Even Windows movie maker can do it. Then why you should go after Adobe After Effects just to get this thing done – never mind the way he did it – no one will inquire about the handwork if outcome is usual.
gr8 tut mate!
btw whats the music of the preview? thanks 
Be The One by The Ting Ting
Some of us never go on vacation but… thanks for sharing your scripts with us Lloyd. And your site is very inspiring.
) soon!!!
Hope to see another one of your enlightening tuts (packed with pro tips and lots of JavaScript — HINT
Thank you very much Lloyd. Great tutorial. As I have said many times in the past, your scripts are amazing! You are greatly missed around here. Hope all is well! Thanks for taking the time to give us this!
Loved all the script work! Thanks, Lloyd!!
Worst tut in the last year
I appreciate the effort put into scripting, but the result was not only something that could be achieved with less effort manually, it’s not even the type of speed you’d want for a slideshow. The photos pop in and out at such a high speed, one cannot appreciate each slide.
Perhaps all that script work could work wonders with a different type of project, but it’s not suited well for a slideshow.
This is what I thought at first myself. This was originally intended as a stop-gap measure until I had the time to do a proper slideshow but after showing this “turbo” slideshow to many, many friends, the consensus was that this was actually a much better way to view photos. Especially for a vacation that they did not attend. People tend to over-estimate how much other people are interested in your photos, this way people get the gist of the trip without the boredom of having to watch so many photos. To each their own, of course, but this is what I found which is why I decided to share this with you all. And regardless of what you do, doing it by hand takes a lot more work and effort.
I totally agree. I LOVE the pace of this.
I haven’t created a slideshow in ten years for that very reason: nobody wants to see them. This actually makes me want to create one again.
Thanks!
I don’t think you’d want to put EVERY picture you have in this type of slide show, but this would be a fantastic way to mix things up. If you have tons of pictures and want to show off as many as possible, this would be a great way to cram a lot of pictures into a short time span. There are definitely uses for this type of presentation in just about any slide show.
When did u come to Barcelona, hehe
I have a very good friend that lives there so I go often, the photos were from my trip last year.
I keep getting an error on the expression:
After Effects warning: Illegal use of reserved word Expression disabled.
Error occurred at line 6.
Comp: ‘Main’
Layer: 3 (‘Photos’)
Property: ‘Time Remap’
Here is the expression copied from my time remap layer
markerLayer = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”);
myNearestKey = markerLayer.marker.nearestKey(time);
markerCounter = 0;
if (time >= myNearestKey.time);
markerCounter = myNearestKey.index;
else
markerCounter = myNearestKey.index -1;
framesToTime(markerCounter );
You should not put a ; after the if statement. It might make more sense if you use curly brackets. When there is only one line the brackets are optional so i left them out in the tutorial but here is the expression with brackets:
markerLayer = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”);
myNearestKey = markerLayer.marker.nearestKey(time);
markerCounter = 0;
if (time >= myNearestKey.time) {
markerCounter = myNearestKey.index;
} else {
markerCounter = myNearestKey.index -1;
}
framesToTime(markerCounter );
Lloyd,
There is definitely value in this script. Thank you for sharing your talent with the rest of us.
Thank you!
Well done Lloyd – yet again.
Due to the nature of my Boring Day Job™, I’ve had to sit through literally hundreds of other people’s slide shows. Almost nobody wants to gaze at every photo for a long 5 seconds as it drifts lazily across the screen. It gets old so fast. I dig this style. Much less painful. Thanks!
This looks similar to the jay z and Alicia keys video
Ha! It does indeed. Believe it or not I had not seen this, thanks for pointing it out. Here’s the link in case anyone is interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjsXo9l6I8
Very useful tutorial and script… thank you for sharing…
Thanks a lot for this Lloyd. What puzzles me is that some of the comments are so negative. Apart from the fact that I dislike negative comments in communities like AE tuts+ because we’re all here to help each other, I also think that your work is of very high quality. So thanks for a great tut and please keep coming back.
I’m also getting an error on my expression. I used the expression that you posted in the comment above….
markerLayer = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”);
myNearestKey = markerLayer.marker.nearestKey(time);
markerCounter = 0;
if (time >= myNearestKey.time)
markerCounter = myNearestKey.index;
else
markerCounter = myNearestKey.index -1;
framesToTime(markerCounter );
***********
After Effects warning: Syntax error
Expression disabled.
Error occurred at line 1.
Comp: ‘main’
Layer: 3(‘photos’)
Property: ‘Time Remap’
Got any advice? This is starting to really bug me.
Great tutorial, PS. haha. Can’t wait to get it rollin with it.
I’m getting the same error now as well. I appreciate you looking in to this.
@Saylor and Jeremy,
to correct your problem delete:
thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”)
from the first line. Then (keeping the cursor at that position) take the pickwip tool and point to the Audio Amplitude layer. Your first line is now completed and it all should work fine.
Oops. Believe it’s called “the pick whip”.
maybe ad like
markerLayer = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”);
myNearestKey = markerLayer.marker.nearestKey(time);
markerCounter = 0;
if (time >= myNearestKey.time)
markerCounter = myNearestKey.index;
else
markerCounter = myNearestKey.index -1;
framesToTime(markerCounter * 40) + time/2;
or something like that
so you get like this slowmo effect and jumps forward in time on every beat
well just details great tut i learned alot.
I had same problem with copying and pasting the script. Sorted it out by deleting first ‘thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”)’ and then pickwhipping the audio amplitude layer again within my own comp.
Think this is a bug in AE where it doesn’t recognise the reference unless you link it directly within your own project.
Thanks!
yeah dude, thx! saved me a lot of headaches
what could I be doing wrong?! none of these expression are working.
@Smudgethis Thanks. that was it.
Dope Tut
Man!… Real Cool Effect…
Love it on the pics… Love it even more on video…
How would i modify the expression to get the video
to play at real time, or maybe in slo-mo?
Thanks.
stupid video
Thanks for the Tutorial, and all your hard work on AEscripts!
Hmmm…i get the error message:
Class`global`has no property or method named `markerLayer
Expression disabled.
Error occured ad line 2.
Can anyone help me??
i did not watch the tut but i can tell you how to do it real fast. so…you put all photos in your timeline. go down about 15 to 20 frames (or whenever the first beat hits. you can see the waveform if you hit LL on the audio layer.). then set an out point on all photo layers. then you chose to sequence the layers for that time length. DONE.
what’s so special about that? i’m really disappointed in all of these tutplus tuts. they’re just dumb. as soon as i can come up with something this dumb i’ll be sure to submit it and profit.
Jason,
Maybe you should watch it before being so critical. It is more than just a down beat change. Also, by just marking the first beat and using that as a template, do you not get drift because of the audio and frame rate? I usually do.
The audio to markers script will adjust for that with out having to go in and manually correcting…time saver! You can also basically adjust the script to the beats you want it to catch, not just the down beats.
I think this is a pretty smart tut, especially if you have any imagination and creativity to take what you learn and use it in different ways. I have done a lot of slide shows that the client didn’t just want a cookie cutter look…this tut and the scripts will help to make those clients happier and save me time.
Lloyd, thanks for the tut and great scripts.