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How to manipulate layers via scripting
I’m trying help out a co-worker. I’m also not the best with all the concepts, so here it goes.
We are creating an animation showing the orbits of satellites. We are also using a plugin that rotates and scales the images of the satellites. There are 839 time steps. We have a script that works for a single satellite, but now we have 7 to deal with. For each satellite, we have a latitude/longitude/bearing/altitude. The first of these three are passed into the plugin. The difficulty is that the satellites vary in height and can switch as to which one is at a higher altitude.
From my understanding, we need a layer for each satellite and examine the altitude to determine the layer ordering. Any suggestions as to an easy method or point me to a solution elsewhere?
Rick
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2 Replies
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Your situation sounds pretty specific, so it’s hard to give a general answer.
How is the latitude/longitude/bearing/altitude data represented in Ae? What plugin are you using? Would it be possible to use 3D layers so you don’t have to worry so much about the layer order?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
I concur: Making the layers 3D will make depth sorting easy. Even the slightest change along the z axis would cause layers to be sorted correctly. Hence, using an expression that slightly shifts the separate layers along z axis based on altitude should do it.
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