Mute all ‘Y’ axis movement on keyframed animation

[Vishesh Arora]

Moog

Select your Position attribute and Alt + Click on it to add expression:

[value[0],value[1]/2]

instead of “2” you can add any value(make sure its not too big). It may help.

Vishesh Arora
3D and Motion Graphics Artist
Films Rajendra

Blog:
https://digieffects.wordpress.com

Demo Reel(3D):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHPgIJU_BR8

[Walter Soyka]

Nice, Vishesh.

I might suggest an enhancement.

First, add a null object, and name it Anchor. We will use as the anchor point around which to scale motion in Y (rather than the [0,0] origin).

Next, add a slider control to the layer we need to dampen, rename it posYScale, and set it for now to 1.

Alt-click the position stopwatch for the layer to dampen, and enter the following:
[value[0], thisComp.layer("Anchor").transform.position[1]+(value[1]-thisComp.layer("Anchor").transform.position[1])*effect("posYScale")("Slider")]
This expression will return X untouched, and return the scaled Y value around our anchor point.

Setting posYScale to 0.5 will halve the Y; setting it to 2 will double it. Moving our Anchor null will change the origin for that transformation. Both can be animated.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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[Darby Edelen]

Both of the provided solutions work, but I’ll offer a third anyway!

1. Copy the layer’s scale
2. Create a new null
3. Parent the layer to the null
4. Unlink the XY dimensions on the null’s scale property
5. With both the null and the layer selected, scale the null down in the y dimension only
6. Unparent the layer and paste its scale back to the pre-parented value

The disadvantage here is that it’s a one way street, but you can re-parent it to the null and make further adjustments if necessary. The advantage is that it shows you the motion path live while you change the scale of the parent null and it doesn’t involve any expressions.

Additionally, you can move the null to a new location before parenting the layer to it and scale toward a different point in the composition. The null essentially works as the anchor point for the motion path’s scaling.

Darby Edelen

[Vishesh Arora]

Great Walter!

An enhanced version of mini expression 😀

Vishesh Arora
3D and Motion Graphics Artist
Films Rajendra

Blog:
https://digieffects.wordpress.com

Demo Reel(3D):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHPgIJU_BR8