Dynamically scaling 3×3 grid

[Natalie Edler]

I unfortunately don’t have an answer for you, but am trying to do this exact same thing. I can’t figure out how to write the expression either….just following this in case you get a reply!

[Paul Connors]

Hi. I’m just flying by but figured I’d give my two cents. Perhaps using a sourceRectAtTime along with “height” and “width” for each layer and then using the dimensions of the comp would be a place to start. For example, if your comp is 1920×1080 you’d want the sum of the widths of cells A1+B1+C1 to equal 1920 and the sum of the heights of cells A1+A2+A3 to equal 1080. I’m SURE there are way smarter people than me that might have a better way of doing this though. Good luck!

[Chris Thomas]

Thanks for the thoughts, Paul! I’m still playing around with this today and will post any success I have.

Fingers crossed—

[Natalie Edler]

I’m still curious how to do this with expressions, but we found this plug-in that can achieve a similar effect to what you posted…
https://paulslemmer.com/rigged-box/

You can put multiple rectangles within one shape layer and then control the scaling of the x and y dimensions and how they effect one another. So far it’s doing the trick for what I was trying to accomplish!

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

I believe it is going to turn into a circular problem the moment you try to do this with more than one rectangle shape. Meaning one where you have an expression in layer A trying to read the result of expression on layer B trying to read the result of expression on layer A. In my estimate it would work better by using nulls that controlled the vertical and horizontal separation points of the boxes, which would give you stable reference points to look up.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Cameron Walker]

Hi Chris,

I made something a little while ago that might help. If you want to download this template and check it out, feel free:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/256lm1hn28g2eq4/StudioHippo-RiggedBox-Template.zip?dl=0

I’ve set this up so that the contents of each box are masked when the boxes shift/resize, but you could probably parent the precomps’ scale values to the controllers as well so they squish/stretch like your example.

Anyway, hope it helps!
Cameron

[George Henderson]

Hi Cameron,
Could you kindly re-upload the file? The link above has expired.

Many thanks!

[Cameron Walker]

Here you go!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y83lorau45hfp8t/StudioHippo-RiggedBoxes-Template.zip?dl=0

Hope it helps.
Cameron

[George Henderson]

That’s perfect, thank you so much!

[Julien Cervantes]

Hi Cameron, Hi George
It is just what i need actually.
Could you kindly re-upload the file once more? The 2 previous links above have expired.

Many thanks!
Julien