• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  Wildcard characters in expression

  Posted by Beth Kaufer on April 9, 2015 at 4:44 pm

  I am hoping someone has a solution to this?

  I am using if else statements to offset pre comps in a main comp. This works great. But I want to offset the comps different for the x and y values. I am using the layer index as my initial value.

  For the y value I have it working and have my comps set into rows. This worked fine. Now I would like my x to change with every 10th comp. So all layer index ending in 1 would have the same value; everything ending in 2 would have another value etc…

  Is there a wild card character that can be used in expressions?

  layNum = thisLayer.index;
/*if else to determine x offset starting over every 10 images*/
if (layNum ==*1) {xlayOff = 1}
else if (layNum == *2 ) {xlayOff = 2}
/*if else to determine y offset every 10 images*/
if (layNum <=10) {ylayOff = 0}
else if (layNum >=11 && layNum <=20) {ylayOff = 1}
else if (layNum >=21 && layNum <=30) {ylayOff = 2}
else if (layNum >=31 && layNum <=40) {ylayOff = 3}
else if (layNum >=41 && layNum <=50) {ylayOff = 4}
else if (layNum >=51 && layNum <=60) {ylayOff = 5}
xOff= thisComp.layer("expression controls").effect("x offset")("Slider");
yOff =thisComp.layer("expression controls").effect("y offset")("Slider");
xNew = xOff*xlayOff;
yNew = yOff*ylayOff;
position = [xNew,yNew]

  -BK

  Dan Ebberts replied 11 years, 5 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Dan Ebberts

  April 9, 2015 at 5:38 pm

  I would do a grid layout like this:

  xOff= thisComp.layer(“expression controls”).effect(“x offset”)(“Slider”);
  yOff =thisComp.layer(“expression controls”).effect(“y offset”)(“Slider”);
  origin = [width,height]/2;
  yIdx = (index-1)%10;
  xIdx = Math.floor((index-1)/10);
  origin + [xIdx*xOff,yIdx*yOff]

  You’ll probably need to adjust the value of ‘origin’.

  Dan
• 

  Beth Kaufer

  April 9, 2015 at 6:28 pm

  Thanks Dan. That is what I am trying to do.
  for future reference is there a wild card character that can be used?

  -BK
• 

  Dan Ebberts

  April 9, 2015 at 6:33 pm

  Short answer: no.

  Dan

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