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Can I change an effect’s property in a compositions from another compositon?
I know how to do that – so please don’t answer the subject – I just couldn’t come up with a better subject title 😛
Anyway, I have a composition (comp A) with a layer being animated. The composition is goint to be used several places in a new composition (comp B) – BUT – I will be changing a few things in each instance of comp A – like amount of glow, start angle, and direction (effects that will not work properly when applied to comp A as a layer in comp B).
How can I do this the easiest way without having a huge amount of variations of comp A’s. I startede by creating a ‘start angle’ angle control in comp B – so in comp A the animation depends on expressions refering to that ‘start angle’ in comp B. Like this:
comp(“comp B”).layer(“comp A”).effect(“start angle”)(“Angle”)
But I have now realized that this isn’t going to work with several instance of the comp A animation in comp B, since they would all have the same start angle, wouldn’t they?
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance for your answers!
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3 Replies
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hmmm.. i’d be doing this old school way i’m afraid….
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I’ve been slowely concluding that too…
oh well, I will just have to find a way of keeping the design of the compositions tight 🙂
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If the changes in the instances are incremental (all the same change, i.e. each one 10 degrees from the next) you might try this expression on the parameter “Color Phase” of one of the Comp A layers (in Comp B) Note:(within Glow I don’t see a start angle, “Color Phase” is the only angle I see, maybe you’re using a 3rd party Glow, but the principal that follows is the same so bear with me, por favor)
angleOffset = 10; // number of degrees each layer offset from layer above
value + index*angleOffset
This will cause the angle to be 10 degrees more on each layer down the layer stack, so the 4th down will have an angle of 40, the 5th an Angle of 50, etc.
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If you wanted more control over the angleOffset, add a new null layer with angle control and pickwhipping the “10” to the angle control gets you:
angleOffset = thisComp.layer(“Null 1”).effect(“Angle Control”)(“Angle”); // number of degrees each layer offset from layer above
value + index*angleOffset
Now changing the angle control ripples all the way down through the stack of layers.
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I don’t see the parameter Amount for Glow, but if you mean Glow Intensity, as similar expression for the first one is:
Glow Intensity = 1; // amount of Intensity each layer offset from layer above
value + index*GlowIntensity
Now the Glow Intensity value of each layer will go up by 1 as you descend in the layer stack.
Similarly you could highlight the “1” above and pickwhip to a Slider Control in the Null layer.
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The Edit>Copy expression Only followed by selecting multiple othe layers then, Paste is a quick way to put an expression on many layers at once (you probably alredy know that. Or if you just dup the Comp A layer in Comp B, you’re good to go.
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If you do have lots of layers to do and the results look to ordered or regular (you see that regular incremental differnce) you coul alway turn off the eyeball for some of the layers to put holes in the regularity of the look.
It seems like an Index expression should do what you want, or get close.
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