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Expression: X&Y coordinates
I want to have a text layer that shows the current X&Y coordinates of another layer as it moves across the screen. So, I made a new text layer, added an expression to the source text property, and pickwhipped the position value of the target layer. It worked fine, but my question is, can I get both the X&Y coordinate at the same time, or do I have to do that on two seperate layers of text? Also, how can I limit the number of decimal placesin the text layers to two or three, because now it’s showing about 13 decimal places.
Thanks in advance for the help! -
6 Replies
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Something like this:
p = thisComp.layer(“myLayer”).position;
“” + Math.round(p[0]*100)/100 + ” ” + Math.round(p[1]*100)/100Dan
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WOW! That was exactly what I needed! One day, I’ll get the hang of expressions, hopefully.
Thanks again. -
This code was very helpful and nearly exactly what I am looking to do as well. I have one slight modification, if anyone may be able to help me.
I am tracking the coordinates of both the x and y value as if it’s from the 0,0 point. I want to be able to track the change in position easier, so I am ‘zero-ing’ it out.
The way I have it configured is by using two Nulls.
Null 1 position is an exact copy of the position.
Null 1 – ZERO is a duplicate of Null 1, with all keyframes highlighted moved to the 0,0 location. Now I am able to see 0,0 change and see exactly how much. Can I use the code you provided to display this data?
Thanks so much!
Ian
thisComp.layer("5 - TIM").transform.position[0]
p = thisComp.layer("5 - TIM").position;
"" + Math.round(p[0]*100)/100 + " " + Math.round(p[1]*100)/100Ian Smith
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I what you want to do is track how much a layer (“target”) has moved since some arbitrary time (I’m using 0 in this example). I think I’d do it like this:
p = thisComp.layer(“target”).transform.position;
d = p – p.valueAtTime(0);
“x = ” + d[0].toFixed(2) + “, y = ” + d[1].toFixed(2)Dan
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Dan,
This was extremely helpful and exactly what I was looking to display. The only adjustment I made was removing the “x =” and “y =”. Your code works perfectly.
Would you mind explaining this code a little for me? Usually I am able to understand what is happening in a code, though I’m far less capable of writing my own. I’m very curious how this is working.
Thanks again!
Ian Smith
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The expression subtracts the target layer’s position at time 0 from it’s current position to calculate how far it has moved. It then converts each component of that distance (x & y) to text using toFixed(2) to limit each number to two decimal places.
Dan
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