I recently made a clean and simple timer icon for a client. The project called for several countdown lengths ranging from 15 minutes to over an hour, and I didn't want to have to create a custom one each time. This solution will actually work for periods as short as 1 second, and for as long as you want to have someone watch a video for

Here's what the finished project looks like when set up for a 1 minute countdown:


While my original project was made with PD365, this sample packed project was made in PD13, so anyone with that version or newer will be able to download and play around with it. Note that the digital timer on the right requires the NewBlueFX Video Essentials IV pack, but the project and timer will still open and work without it (you'll probably want to update the Timer Start and Timer End snapshots on track 2 to remove the digital timer images, though).

To understand how it works, take a look at these panels. There's a transparent semicircle that starts out with the solid yellow section on the right side of the circle, and it then smoothly rotates through 360 degrees over the duration of the clip. For the first half, there's also a static image of the same semicircle fixed on the left side:



To complete the effect, the static left semicircle is swapped at the exact midpoint with a flipped version that's been changed to the background color to mask the unwanted right edge of the rotating image:



That's all there is to it!

However, apparently "simple" projects like this often have little editing details that have to be just right to pull off the intended effect, and if you want to change the timer's duration, you'll need to perform all of the following steps.

To increase the timer duration:

1. Change the duration of the 360 degree rotation clip to the new length.


2. Go to Keyframes and delete the original ending Rotation keyframe that's now in the middle. A new ending keyframe will already be set to 360, so you have to delete the middle one to reset the full rotation to be the same as the clip duration


3. Change the duration of the Static 1st half semicircle clip to be exactly half of the new timer length.


4. Change the duration of the Static 2nd half semicircle (background color) clip to be exactly half of the new timer length. There are two Position keyframes here to slightly change the position over the clip's duration so the starting and ending points look perfect, and you'll want to create a new Position keyframe at the end of the clip and set the X value to 0.337 (Y remains unchanged and should be 0.482)


5. Set the duration and starting values for the NewBlue Time Clock FX to match. Take a new beginning snapshot to match the new timer duration and replace the Timer Start clip on track 2.


6. Change the duration of the background clip on track 1 to match, and move the End Timer and ending Bell clips to the new ending location

To decrease the timer duration:

1. Change the duration of the 360 degree rotation clip to the new length.


2. Go to Keyframes and create a new ending Rotation keyframe set to 360 to cause the full rotation to be the same as the clip duration


3. Change the duration of the Static 1st half semicircle clip to be exactly half of the new timer length.


4. Change the duration of the Static 2nd half semicircle (background color) clip to be exactly half of the new timer length. There are two Position keyframes here to slightly change the position over the clip's duration so the starting and ending points look perfect, so you have to delete the original end keyframe that's now in the middle


5. Set the duration and starting values for the NewBlue Time Clock FX to match. Take a new beginning snapshot to match the new timer duration and replace the Timer Start clip on track 2.


6. Change the duration of the background clip on track 1 to match, and move the End Timer and ending Bell clips to the new ending location

The clips are transparent PNGs I created using Paint.net, so the timer will appear over any background, including video. You'll have to do some extra work though if you want the "empty" section of the timer to show video rather than simply be a duller color like the background here.

So go ahead and download the project and play around with it to see how it works. I just added the two full size images as attachments to show the details that might be too hard to read on the embedded images above, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Enjoy!

YouTube/optodata

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