• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  Parenting only one transform value….

  Posted by Erin Shelby on March 26, 2006 at 3:10 am

  Hi, I want to parent an object to another object (let’s say a “flame” animation layer to a “candle” layer) – but I don’t want the flame to inherit other properties (rotation, scale) from the candle, I only want it to keep it’s distance relative to it’s position. Why I don’t just use an expression on the position of the flame layer (ie: thiscomp.layer(“candle”).transform.position) is because I don’t want it to be exactly on the anchor point of the candle – I want it to be like the parent effect where it stays in relation to the anchor point from when I parent the object. Any clues on a direction I should be going here?

  -grey

  Mike Clasby replied 20 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Mike Clasby

  March 26, 2006 at 3:38 am

  OK, here’s one way, probably not the cleanest, but it works.

  If you want the “flame” layer to keeps it’s position relative, and that’s all:

  Apply the Effect > Distort > Transform to the flame layer.

  Alt + Click the Position Stopwatch in the Transform Effect to the “candel” layer’s postion. Now with the Anchor Point in the Transform Effect (Flame again) position it relative to the candle.
• 

  Mike Clasby

  March 26, 2006 at 3:54 am

  I knew there was a better way. Do the expression you mentioned, pickwhipping the flame position to the candle position:

  thisComp.layer(“flame”).position

  then add “+ value”:

  thisComp.layer(“flame”).position + value

  Now adjust the position of the flame to be where you want relative to the candle, you can even change that relative position over time with keyframes.

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