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Making Center of Effect Follow Another Layer
I’m reading the Chad Perkins book, After Effects Illusionist. In one exercise, demonstrating the Magnify effect, we create a magnified circle on a .mov layer, scale the effect to fit the lens of a magnifying glass on another layer, then pick-whip the Center of the effect to the Position of the magnifying glass. (Cheesy, but whatever.) Anyway, the magnified circle was all over the place (usually off the frame) and it took me forever to figure out that the footage supplied (the .mov) was scaled to something like 200% to begin with. In other words, the only time the effect lined up with the magnifying glass was when my glass was in position 0, 0 – at the top left of the frame.
I figured, that’s the problem, the footage was scaled way up, and that messes with the expression. So, I started a new project, imported my own footage, created a circular shape layer (with translucent fill) and applied a magnify effect to my footage. I pick-whipped the center of the effect to the position of the shape layer and…the magnified circle sits to the right of the shape outline! Follows it along wherever it goes, but it’s outside the circle. Really, the odds of using this technique may be slim, (though, as mentioned in the book, if I’m ever doing a sniper scene…) but I have to know. Thanks!
Incidentally, I really know nothing about Expressions. I’ve been following along in books, trying to grasp and improve on the basics of AE, and I know that one day I’m going to have to find some material that will really let my grasp the whole concept of expressions.
thisComp.layer("Shape Layer 1").transform.positionDavid Bark
Lightshine Productions -
1 Reply
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Just change Chad’s expression to this:
fromWorld(thisComp.layer(“Magnifying Glass”).transform.position)
Dan
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