How to feed an argument of lenght 1 when a lenght 2 is demanded?

[Filip Vandueren]

You should send a 2D or 3D value into toWorld(), usually that doesn’t need to be the position of the layer, but a point on the layer. Most often we want to find the position of a layer’s anchorPoint in space, and for a default null that would be [0,0,0].

So the code for what you’re asking is this:

nullLayer = comp("comp2").layer("2D_null");
xyz=thisLayer.fromWorld(nullLayer.toWorld([0,0,0]));
x=xyz[0];
y=xyz[1];

But I’m not entirely sure this is going to do what you expect it to do. When do you expect the rotations to be at 0 ?

[Filip Vandueren]

Maybe all you need is a lookAt() expression on the orientation of the layer?

[Cesar Siena]

Thank you for replying.

Feedback

It worked(!) in 3D Head’s “X rotation” and “Y rotation” using the following command (last) lines below, but it didn’t work in “Z rotation”.

Small issue

The head gained a little twist when the expressions were applied, in a way that, to correct head’s position, the 2D null had to be dislocated far from the screen’center (in other words, I didn’t manage to center the 2D null after that – any ideas?)

The 2 expressions that worked were:

IN THE X ROTATION OF THE 3D HEAD
nullLayer = comp(“Comp2”).layer(“2D_null”);
xyz=thisLayer.fromWorld(nullLayer.toWorld([0,0,0]));
x=xyz[0];
y=xyz[1];
y

IN THE Y ROTATION OF THE 3D HEAD
nullLayer = comp(“Comp2”).layer(“2D_null”);
xyz=thisLayer.fromWorld(nullLayer.toWorld([0,0,0]));
x=xyz[0];
y=xyz[1];
x

IN THE Z ROTATION OF 3D HEAD
— DIDN’T WORK —
nullLayer = comp(“Comp2”).layer(“2D_null”);
xyz=thisLayer.fromWorld(nullLayer.toWorld([0,0,0]));
x=xyz[0];
y=xyz[1];
z=xyz[2]
z

IN THE Z ROTATION OF 3D HEAD

— WORKED —

simple pickwhip to 2D null’s rotation, without any layer transforms between different comps of different dimensions.

I already read Adobe’s information about lookAt and watched tutorials, but I presume that Java Script knowledge is necessary to fully understand that. I have also tryed fromComptoSurface with no results.

These are common doubts even of experienced animators. Maybe Adobe could improve it’s explanations and examples about it.

Any ideas to correct 2D null’s position described above?

Thank you very much, Filip! Best regards!

[Filip Vandueren]

You are correct that for Z, you could still use the actual rotation as before.

To correct the 2D position of the null I would have to see the entire project, because it depends on the positions of face and null layer and wether the heads position is animated etc.

[Cesar Siena]

The project alone, without the assets, wouldn’t be enough for this, but I thank you very much for all the help! Kind regards