• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  Shape size auto-adjust to text – excluding text descenders!

  Posted by Stephen Wiseman on February 6, 2017 at 11:18 am

  Hi all

  I’m designing some video brand assets for a client and as they have little knowledge of after effects it needs to be simple for them to use. With this in mind I have designed an orange “tab” (as per their branding) that sits next to text and which adjusts automatically to text height when they type something in. The tab is simply a rectangle shape layer. This works fine but they are very specific about their branding and the tab needs to stop at the baseline of the text and not include in it’s height any descenders (hang bits on y’s, p’s etc).

  I can’t for the life of me think of anything to add to my expression that will do this but maybe someone knows an answer? I thought about deducting so many pixels or percentage from the height but if there are no descenders in their text then the shape will not match the baseline.

  Any help would be appreciated, expressions attached below

  Size expression on Rectangle path:

  theTextLayer = thisComp.layer("TITLE - EDIT ME");
  theTextRectInfo = theTextLayer.sourceRectAtTime(time);
  theWidth = 60;
  theHeight = theTextRectInfo.height;
  [theWidth,theHeight]

  Postion expression on rectangle path:

  theTextLayer = thisComp.layer("TITLE - EDIT ME");
theTextRectInfo = theTextLayer.sourceRectAtTime(time);
theX = 0;
theY = theTextLayer.toComp([0,0])[1] - (theTextRectInfo.height/2);
[theX,theY]

  Gates Bradley replied 8 years, 6 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Kevin Camp

  February 6, 2017 at 8:21 pm

  maybe try a layer as a track matte for the tab…?

  if you position the track matte on the baseline of the text, i think it would work.. you could even parent that track matte to the text layer in case they decide to reposition the text.

  or, since you are likely using a shape layer as the tab, you might be able to add another rectangle path to that tab, and use ‘merge paths’ to subtract one from the other…

  Kevin Camp
  Art Director
  KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW
• 

  Kevin Camp

  February 6, 2017 at 10:04 pm

  you could also try linear wipe, you just need to link the completion to the y-position relative to the comp height:

  target = thisComp.layer(“TITLE – EDIT ME”);
  100 – ( 100 * target.position[1] / thisComp.height );

  Kevin Camp
  Art Director
  KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW
• 

  Gates Bradley

  November 9, 2017 at 1:35 pm

  Any chance there is a way to do it without actually cropping the layer? I’ve made a custom cursor that moves with the text using sourceRecAtTime, using an expression posted by Dan Ebberts (thanks Dan!), but the descenders keeping changing the cursor’s position in Y space, when I want it to only respond to X plane info. As soon as a p or a y comes on the screen, the cursor shifts lower on the Y plane.

  xOffset = 220;
  yOffset = 0;
  L = thisComp.layer(“1138 may ln phoenix”);
  rect = L.sourceRectAtTime(time,false);
  L.toComp([rect.left+rect.width,rect.top+rect.height]) + [xOffset,yOffset];

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