• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  attaching layers together with rubber bands under water

  Posted by Dan Lacloche on March 23, 2010 at 1:49 pm

  I know enough about expressions to know that this is possible, but I don’t know how.

  I want to link 5 layers to 1 other layer. I want to use the position attribute.

  When I move the 1 layer’s x, y or z position, the other 5 layers should follow with physics, as if attached with ‘rubber bands under water’.

  Example:
  If I move the leader layer to the right, the other 5 layers don’t move right away, they are a bit delayed. When they do start to follow, they react as if attached with elastic bands.
  When the leader layer stops, the 5 layers ease into their places.

  I’ve seen things like this done in Flash with things that follow the mouse.

  Where do I start?

  Thanks.

  Dan Ebberts replied 16 years, 5 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Dan Ebberts

  March 23, 2010 at 5:28 pm

  That kind of physical simulation is easier to do in Flash because your data persists from frame to frame. With expressions, at each frame you have to recalculate everything that’s happened on previous frames. Have you seen this example?

  https://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/elastic.html

  Dan

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