Expression Help - in partular smoother smooth

[electricbrown]

Hi, is there a resource, maybe a beginners walk through, with usable examples of expression algorithms, to show what it is capable of ?
I am trying to work with random values and smooth and hold, but still find it a little too jerky, is there away to get more organic looking randomisation?

[Eric]

I’m not sure what “organic looking randomization” means but the Random Trigger modifier will give you a random number that holds indefinitely (until the next trigger).

[electricbrown]

Thanks for your reply Organic looking randomisation, with exponential, or acceloration/deceleration curves at the end of each variation, so that the direction changes are less sudden.
I've tried, all sorts of variations, of , triggered random, hold, delay, smooths, multiple smoothes, but is there a list of expressions that are regualrly used? Have looked art the ExprTk document, but is beyond me at the moment.

[Eric]

so that the direction changes are less sudden.

Direction changes of what exactly? I'm not sure what you're talking about. It's a long conceptual way from random numbers to "direction changes". I'm sure you have something specific in your head but you're not painting a clear picture for me. A very specific example with images and/or videos would be helpful.

[electricbrown]

Thanks for your patience!

just a simple example...
with the x factor on a scale for a polygon being modulated by

[random] - [hold] - [smooth] modules .

The width will slowly transform, but the change of width can sometimes be jerky if there is a large difference in the random x.
I am wondering if there is some sort of bezier curve function that will smooth the values, very high [smooth] still appears jerky.

[Eric]

very high [smooth] still appears jerky

That's very subjective. If I do:

Random(1.0)
Hold(0.5)
Smooth(0.1)

It looks perfectly non-jerky to me.

Even if I do Hold(.1) it still looks non-jerky.

And there's still a lot of room for more smoothing. And of course you can just use multiple smooths if you need to (although I can't imagine you would!)

I really don't know what visual effect you're after so that's why I asked for images or video. But other than that, I have to say that smoothing random values isn't really a worthwhile exercise -- it means you don't actually want truly random values after all.