animating expression on/off

[Colin Braley]

To add a slider go to Effects > Slider Control while you have a layer selected. For info on how to link the expression, search your help files for “pick whip” or “expression pick whip.” 🙂
~Colin

[Mike Clasby]

Dan’s expression above, (which I think is the slickest), is made for a Checkbox on the same layer, and like you said you want a master Controller for many layers, so:

Layer > New > Null Object

If it’s your first null it will be named “Null 1”
Go ahead and twirl down to Effect, Checkbox Contro, until you get to the Stopwatch for Checkbox, we’re going to pickwhip to this later.

paste Dan’s expression into the Position property of one of the layer you want to wiggle:

control = effect(“Checkbox Control”)(“Checkbox”) ;

if (control == 1){
wiggle(5,50); // your expression goes here
}else{
value;
}

And you get an instant warning that the expression can’t find the Checkbox, so

Highlight (select):

effect(“Checkbox Control”)(“Checkbox”)

or everthing between the = and the ; in the first line of Dan’s expression,
now drag the pickwhip from the expression (the middle of the 3 little boxes that looks like an @, to the right of Position) to the twirled down Checkbox (up in the Null Layer), and AE changes the highlighted section and gives you this:

control = thisComp.layer(“Null 1”).effect(“Checkbox Control”)(“Checkbox”) ;

if (control == 1){
wiggle(5,50); // your expression goes here
}else{
value;
}

So, set some keyrames up and down the timeline for the checkbox, and the layer will respond to the turned On/Off expression.

Now, like Colin said, Select, the layer that wiggles, and its Position property, then, Edit>Copy Expression Only, then select the other layers you want to put the expression on and Edit > Paste (Ctrl V) and everbody should wiggle to the Checkbox keyframes.

Likewise, if you want a Slider, put it on the Null Layer, then like I said in the first post, highlight the first number in the wiggle expression (the Frequency):

wiggle (5, 20)

highlight the “5” and pickwhip to the Slider up in the Null layer. Copy/Paste as above to the other layers. Now you control the Frequency of the wiggle with a slider.

[Mike Clasby]

Oh, yeah, don’t use the Checkbox and a Slider both to control your expression unless you thrive on chaos.

[Phil Lebeau]

I am trying to use the pendulum effect on the x rotation of my text.
But I need it to start later in time after other text has appeared.

I have 3 words that will cascade down with the pendulum effect so all 3 words will come in slightly after each other.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for your time.

[Alex Ezorsky]

hmn I get an error saying “function effect is undefined” ??