Expression assistance.

Question

Hi,
I was wondering if someone could help me out with an expression (I am thinking an expression would be the easiest). What I am trying to achieve is the following:
I have a HUD with 6 circles in it. I have a set of 6 characters that I want to display in this HUD, one in each circle. I also want the characters to randomly change betweem themselves (within each circle)
1) have created a comp with the base HUD
2) I have created a second comp to contain the base characters (I have the base HUD in this comp as an adjustment layer to line things up)
3) The comp woth the base characters has 6 pre-comps, each containing all 6 characters on the same spot (to allow for them to randomly appear on and off)
Am I complicating this too much?
Above is a very simple depiction of what I am trying to achieve - each number would randomly change between the value of 1-6. In my current comp, Each number is in its own pre-comp, which contains all 6 numbers (I thought it would be easier to have them all in each pre-comp as a "Base" and apply an expression at that level to randomly chage them).
I am hoping this makes sense, This is the year I delve into the murky and bottomless depth of After Effects and Text!
Thank you
Pierre

Answer 1

You could use a simple time-remapping expression:
cSeed=thisComp.layer("XYZ")("Slider");
seedRandom(index+cSeed,true);
cRand=Math.round(random(1,6));
cVal=framesToTime(cRand);
[cVal]
That's assuming each of the characters is just one frame. Change the seed slider value to get different distributions and animate it.
Mylenium