• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  afx keeps turning off my expressions.

  Posted by Jakob Thommessen on September 24, 2007 at 12:17 pm

  Hi,
  I have some problems with after effects turning off expressions without warning.

  I have some pretty simple expressions made so that a lot of solids (33) will follow each other (just rotation and opacity) with a delay set by the KONTROLL!!! slider.

  thisComp.layer(index-2).transform.yRotation.valueAtTime(time-thisComp.layer(“KONTROLL!!!”).effect(“tid”)(“Slider”))

  thisComp.layer(index-2).transform.opacity.valueAtTime(time-thisComp.layer(“KONTROLL!!!”).effect(“tid”)(“Slider”))

  between these solids are pretty large photos that use the solids as masks and then they are parented to the same solid so that they follow the rotation and opacity.

  I have a new intel 8core mac and afx cs3 so I hope that it is too much for it to render. any tips on maximizing performance in afx or any other workarounds?

  much appreciated!
  Jakob

  Jakob Thommessen replied 18 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Dan Ebberts

  September 24, 2007 at 4:00 pm

  Are you getting an expression timeout error? That can happen when you cascade expressions (expression on one layer references another layer which has an expression referencing another layer, etc.) if the cascade chain gets too long. A better approach is to calculate the delay based on the layer’s index (compared to that of the “leader” layer). It would look something like this (not tested):

  leader = thisComp.layer(“leader”);
  delay = thisComp.layer(“KONTROLL!!!”).effect(“tid”)(“Slider”);
  leader.transform.yRotation.valueAtTime(time-delay*((index – leader.index)/2))

  Dan
• 

  Jakob Thommessen

  October 2, 2007 at 2:56 pm

  Thank you Dan,
  I will try that out.
  I have had expression timeout error before, but then a warning always popped up..
  I solved the problem for now with the trapcode echospace plugin wich works very well.

  Thanks again for helping!

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