• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  How to make an expression “Master Control” layer that allows linked layers to use their own variables?

  Posted by Christopher Rutherford on October 31, 2015 at 4:49 pm

  Basically my question is this. Say I have 3 Layers, “Control” (layer 1), “A” (layer 2) and “B” (layer 3). Say I want the scales of each layer to change based on a value exclusive to itself (in this case the index number). Would there be a way of creating an expression for “Control” that would allow linked layers to use the code in the layer rather than the result of that code?

  Say the expression I’m using is “transform.scale*index/2.” If I apply that to layer 1, then the result would be 50% [100% x 1 ÷ 2]. Linking the scale properties of “A” and “B” to the scale property of “Control” however, would result in those layers being 50% too. Is there a way to make it so that the controlled layers use their own index values when taking on the math of the control? So that A & B would be 100% and 150%, respectively?

  Christopher Rutherford replied 10 years, 10 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Dan Ebberts

  October 31, 2015 at 5:32 pm

  >Would there be a way of creating an expression for “Control” that would allow linked layers to use the code in the layer rather than the result of that code?

  No, the expression itself is not accessible by other layers. You could do something like this for the other layers:

  thisComp.layer(“Control”).transform.scale*index, but it would be simpler to just put the same expression in each layer.

  Dan
• 

  Christopher Rutherford

  October 31, 2015 at 5:42 pm

  Ah, bummer. Thanks for the insight Dan (this, and everything else over the years). Cheers.

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