• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  Can’t get xRotation value of another layer in After Effects

  Posted by Shaun Thomson on July 13, 2021 at 1:42 pm

  I have two layers – a leader and a follower.

  I’m successfully able to make the follower follow the leader with this expression in the follower’s Position property:

  src=thisComp.layer("Leader");
  delay = thisComp.layer("Leader").effect("Delay")("Slider"); 
  d = delay*thisComp.frameDuration*(index - 1);
  src.position.valueAtTime(time - d);
  

  I can also make it follow the leader’s orientation with this expression in the follower’s Orientation property:

  src=thisComp.layer("Leader");
  delay = thisComp.layer("Leader").effect("Delay")("Slider"); 
  d = delay*thisComp.frameDuration*(index - 1);
  src.orientation.valueAtTime(time - d);
  

  However, when I try to make the follower follow the leader’s xRotation with the following in the follower’s xRotation property, I get an error:

  src=thisComp.layer("Leader");
  delay = thisComp.layer("Leader").effect("Delay")("Slider"); 
  d = delay*thisComp.frameDuration*(index - 1);
  src.xRotation.valueAtTime(time - d);
  

  The error:

  Cannot read read property 'valueAtTime' of undefined
  

  The code works fine for the other properties – why not the xRotation?

  The leader definitely has xRotation keyframes in it.

  Thank you

  Dan Ebberts

  

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

• 

  Dan Ebberts

  July 13, 2021 at 2:58 pm

  Try it this way:

  src.transform.xRotation.valueAtTime(time – d);
• 

  Shaun Thomson

  July 14, 2021 at 2:50 am

  Thank you Dan. It’s throwing a syntax error now. I can’t find anything wrong with the syntax though – is anything obvious sticking out please?

  src=thisComp.layer(“Leader”);

  delay = thisComp.layer(“Leader”).effect(“Delay”)(“Slider”);

  d = delay*thisComp.frameDuration*(index – 1);

  src.transform.xRotation.valueAtTime(time – d);

  Error: missing ) after argument list

  
• 

  Dan Ebberts

  July 14, 2021 at 3:31 pm

  Once I fixed the mangled quotes and minus signs (which happens in this forum if you don’t use a preformatted text box to post code), it seems to work fine. This should be OK:

  src=thisComp.layer("Leader");
  delay = thisComp.layer("Leader").effect("Delay")("Slider");
  d = delay*thisComp.frameDuration*(index - 1);
  src.transform.xRotation.valueAtTime(time - d);

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