• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  Get value of an Anchor-Point of an Layer which name is choosen by CSV

  Posted by Jonas Schwarzer on October 22, 2020 at 9:10 am

  Hello, have an Problem with my code. I have csv table with two columns: One “MarkerNr” and one “Landkreis” (german word for counties). I have a Slider with the rounded values of 1-10 which use to select the row i want to access. In the column “Landkreis”, i have the name of the counties (for example “Ortenaukreis”) and i have many Layer with the counties name (so for example one of the Layer names is “Ortenaukreis”, too). Now i want the Position of an Null Object too get set to the Anchor-Point of the choosen Layer Name from the CSV. But it doesn’t work, it will show an error message tranlated from german says something like: Layer-Index 0 not within the allowed range…

  Here is my code:

  markerNr = thisComp.layer(“Werte_Speicher”).effect(“Auswahl-MarkerNr”)(1); //this is the slider to choose the row

  landkreis = footage(“Landkreisauswahl.csv”).dataValue([1,markerNr]); //get value from the csv at position of slider

  l = thisComp.layer(landkreis); // acces the Layer with name written in the csv (e.g. layer with name “Berlin” or “Ortenaukreis”)

  l.toComp(l.anchorPoint); // get position of the selected layers anchor Point in this comp

  my CSV looks like the one in the photo i attached. Hope i could explain may problem good enough (my english isn’t the best) and someone can help me with this.

  

  Jonas Schwarzer replied 5 years, 6 months ago 2 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Jonas Schwarzer

  October 22, 2020 at 10:35 am

  i found a solution that (kind of) works BUT still shows an error (while working). I think the problem is with the String which i use to access the layer. So i tried to convert it to a String but maybe i did it wrong or it is not the problem. With adding four ‘ to the code, it seems to kind of work.

  The same when i enter the Layer-Name manually e.g.: l = thisComp.layer(“Berlin”);

  –> this works fine too.

  Here is the code that kind of works now:

  markerNr = thisComp.layer(“Werte_Speicher”).effect(“Auswahl-MarkerNr”)(1);
   landkreis = footage(“Landkreisauswahl.csv”).dataValue([1,markerNr]);
   l = thisComp.layer('' +landkreis +'');   //<<--- here i added ''
  l.toComp(l.anchorPoint); 

  But since it still shows an error i think there is something i am missing and i think it is they way it uses the String that i get from CSV… Hope someone can help me more
• 

  Stephen Dixon

  October 22, 2020 at 10:35 am

  Try making a text layer and setting the source text using the expression to test what value landkreis is returning. E.g., put this on the source text property:

  markerNr = thisComp.layer(“Werte_Speicher”).effect(“Auswahl-MarkerNr”)(1); 
  landkreis = footage(“Landkreisauswahl.csv”).dataValue([1,markerNr]); 
  landkreis
  

  That will tell you if the data is coming from the csv properly
• 

  Jonas Schwarzer

  October 22, 2020 at 10:39 am

  Did this already and works fine. No problem there – this is what bugs me. I can use it to get the text as source text and it always shows the correct string but as a Layer-Name it has problems… I think this really comes from the fact that you use “” for getting the Layer-Name. In my before post you can see i found a work around, the expression still shows error codes BUT it is working – don’t ask me why. Still hoping to find a proper solution that works without error…
• 

  Jonas Schwarzer

  October 22, 2020 at 11:57 am

  Ok i found the solution… had to change variables value to a string:

  markerNr = thisComp.layer(“Werte_Speicher”).effect(“Auswahl-MarkerNr”)(1);
   landkreis = String(footage(“Landkreisauswahl.csv”).dataValue([1,markerNr]));
   l = thisComp.layer(landkreis);   
  l.toComp(l.anchorPoint); 

  this seems to work…

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