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Automated way to redirect a stack of expressions in a comp to pull from a different source layer outside of the comp…
I am setting up an admittedly complicated project which is centred around a jigsaw.
I have three rows so far A1-A5, B1-B5 and C1-C5. Each jigsaw piece is a composition with a solid feeding off a luma matte pre-comp (A1_MATTE, A2_MATTE etc…) inside which turns the jigsaw ‘teeth’ on/off.
These luma mattes feed respectively off the piece to the left and above it which drives their ‘North’ and ‘West’ teeth.
Currently with any new piece I am having to go all the way through to the respective luma matte, open up the expression and change the expression to point the respective neighbouring layers. I would like to find a simpler way so that I can point all the scripts in the comp towards the new two feeder layers by changing one or two pieces of information at a higher level (perhaps on a top adjustment layer which I generally use as the ‘DRIVER’ layer in a comp).
For example if I have a new piece ‘D4’ I can change the feeder comps to ‘D3’ and ‘C4’ and that filters through the expressions.
I thought that maybe the expression control ‘Layer Control’ might be it but it seems to only show me layers within the composition that it is in and I need it to reach the over-arching one.
To show you my expressions – in piece B3 the B3_LUMA_MATTE has this on its ‘WEST” tooth scale to flip the luma matte…
a = 100;
b = -100;
n = comp("JIGSAW").layer("B2").effect("EAST_on")("Checkbox");if (n==0) [a,a] else [a, b]
…and this on its ‘NORTH’ tooth scale…
a = 100;
b = -100;
n = comp("JIGSAW").layer("A3").effect("SOUTH_on")("Checkbox");if (n==0) [a,a] else [a, b]
Is there any way to change the “comp(“JIGSAW”).layer(“A3″)” section of the expression at a higher level so that it points to another specific layer?
Does that make sense!?
Many thanks in advance!
Jim
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2 Replies
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I don’t know if this helps, but you could put your layer names (and other parameter names) in centralized text layers, like this:
layerName = comp(“Main”).layer(“TEXT”).text.sourceText.value;
n = comp(“JIGSAW”).layer(layerName).effect(“EAST_on”)(“Checkbox”);Dan
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Dan, as ever, thank you.
That was exactly what I was looking for and I didn’t realise you could feed text layers into expressions like that. That is really exciting as I use a lot of convoluted mechanical processes in After Effects that this makes life a lot easier!
Thank you again,
Jim
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