Falloff scale but maintain distance?

[Filip Vandueren]

It’s pretty hard to do in expressions, because every layer’s position and scale is depending on all others:

If a layer scales up because it is close to the center, it pushes the other layers some pixels to the left and right, where it they also would have a different distance from the center, so they need to adjust their scale, which again needs to move all layers before/after them.

The order in which this needs to happen is not easy to determine.

I think if there’s a workable solution, it would need to be simulated and calculated inside of a text-layer, and then all the layers getr thier position and scale from that text-layer’s output. Havinf every indivicual layer calculate its own position and scale isn’t possible.

[Filip Vandueren]

Here is an example using the precalculations in the text-layers:

parentLayer=thisComp.layer("Null 1");
firstLayer=thisComp.layer("Null 1").index+1; 
lastLayer=thisComp.numLayers;
margin = 40;
bulge = 133;
falloffMin = 0;
falloffMax = 600;
x=0;
data = [];
for (i=firstLayer; i<=lastLayer; i++) {
	w = thisComp.layer(i).sourceRectAtTime().width;	
	if (i>firstLayer ) {
		w_1 = thisComp.layer(i-1).sourceRectAtTime().width;	
		x+=margin + (w + w_1)/2;
	}
	d = Math.abs(parentLayer.toComp([x,0])[0] - 960); // d = x-distance to center of comp
	s = ease(d, falloffMin, falloffMax, bulge, 100);
	extraW = w*(s-100)/200; // how many pixels wider did the scale make the shape (divided by 2)
	data.forEach( e => e.x-=extraW ); // each previous shape deducts extraW, moving left
	data.push({x:x, s:s});
	x+=extraW; // the running total x gets an additional extraW, shifting each following shape right
}
JSON.stringify(data);

Falloff-scale-but-maintain-distance.aep 268 KB After Effects Project Files - Click to view

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[Simon Smith]

That’s fantastic! Thanks so much!

[Simon Smith]

Sorry, know I’ve already said thanks but the more I play with this and the more I find how flexible it is, the more in awe I am. 😄 Genius. Absolutely what I needed. Thank you! !

[Brie Clayton]

Thank you for the solve, Filip!