Attach lens flare to a layers anchor point

[Dan Ebberts]

What’s the expression you’re using now?

Dan

[Espen Jakobsen]

thisComp.layer(“sun”).toComp([0,0,0]);

Used this to link the lens flare center to the sun layers’ position

[Dan Ebberts]

This should put it in the center of the sun layer:

L = thisComp.layer(“sun”);
L.toComp([L.width/2,L.height/2]);

If you haven’t moved the anchor point, this should work as well:

L = thisComp.layer(“sun”);
L.toComp(L.anchorPoint);

Dan

[Espen Jakobsen]

Ah! So dividing the position coordinates by two will put it in the center, thanks a million! 🙂

[Darby Edelen]

[Espen Jakobsen] “Ah! So dividing the position coordinates by two will put it in the center, thanks a million! :)”

Just to clarify, Dan isn’t dividing any position coordinates by two. If I rewrite this it may make more sense:


L = thisComp.layer("sun");
center = [L.width/2, L.height/2];
L.toComp(center);


The above expression is the same as what Dan gave you, only I’ve created a new variable to hold the layer coordinates we’re providing to toComp().

The function toComp() is expecting a coordinate in layer space, in this case specifically it wants a coordinate in the layer space of the layer L (the “sun” layer).

In your original code you had:

thisComp.layer("sun").toComp([0,0,0]);

Which would return the location of the point [0,0,0] on the layer (the upper left corner) in composition coordinates. What Dan did is instead gave the toComp() function a coordinate representing the center of the layer.

In order to find the center of the layer he simply divided the width and height of the layer in pixels by 2:

[L.width/2, L.height/2]

Does that make sense? If, instead, he had written:

[L.width, L.height]

Then the flare would have followed the lower right corner of the “sun” layer. What we’re doing here is taking a point in layer space (like a layer’s anchor point) and converting it to composition space (like a layer’s position coordinates).

Darby Edelen