• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  Expression to offset Z axis by layer number

  Posted by Dan Marker on September 19, 2007 at 7:45 pm

  I used to know a code that I could use to make 3D text add z-depth… basically it would figure out the leyer number and somehow translate that into a z position offset and then I could just duplicate the layer to a desired z-depth

  anyone know what this expression is?

  thanks
  dan

  Martin King replied 15 years, 3 months ago 4 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Pdebster

  September 19, 2007 at 8:22 pm

  Hi Dan,
  I’m sure the renowned Mr. Ebberts has a more elegant solution, but this has worked for me in the past when ‘extruding’ in Z:

  1. make a solid that acts as your base layer
  2. add a ‘child’ layer directly above the base layer that you wish to offset in z
  3. to the position property of the child, add:
  offset = 10; //you may want to drive this with a slider
  p = thisComp.layer(“base”);
  offsetInterval = Math.abs(index – thisComp.layer(“base”).index);
  [p.position[0], p.position[1], p.position[2] + (offset*offsetInterval)];

  then duplicate your child to your heart’s content.

  hope that is what you were looking for (or in the ballpark),
  pdebster
• 

  Dan Marker

  September 19, 2007 at 10:02 pm

  perfect… thanks for the help
• 

  Jean-lou Roy

  March 1, 2010 at 3:42 pm

  Thanks! These few lines of code were really helpful! JL
• 

  Martin King

  February 18, 2011 at 3:56 pm

  How about the following:

  [position[0], position[1],0.5* thisLayer.index];


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