• Adobe After Effects

  parent to null but update position date

  Posted by Justin Young on February 18, 2012 at 5:54 am

  I have a layer that’s parented to a null. It used to be (or least I think it did) that when you parented a layer to a null and moved the null, the position values of the child changed as well.

  How do I set things so that if I use a beam effect I can make it line up with the position of my child layer and still have my child layer parented to a null that’s moving around everything?

  Roland R. kahlenberg replied 14 years, 2 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Roland R. kahlenberg

  February 18, 2012 at 9:05 am

  You’ll need to look at Expressions, specifically, Layer Transformations. You will require 2 Null Layers, a child layer and a fourth layer to contain the Beam effect.

  Create the parent/child relationship between one of the Nulls (Parent) and the ChildLayer. Then apply Beam to a Solid and set Length to 100%.

  Then apply the following Expressions to the Solid with the Beam effect.

  NOTE: I’ve named the Child Layer as, ChildLayer – make the necessary name change to the script to suit your naming convention.

  Expression for Beam’s Start Point:
  thisComp.layer(“Null 1”).transform.position

  Expression for Beam’s End Point:
  L=thisComp.layer(“ChildLayer”);
  L.toComp(L.anchorPoint)

  HTH
  RoRK

  Intensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
  Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up