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Nested Time-remapped Comps’ error with Keyframing
Going through some of the old posts on this same problem faced by many others like me have educated me about the error and why it actually happens but I am not any closer to solving this on my own so I look once again to this forum and it’s experts. Kindly help me.
Problem :
Keyframing a Null in the main comp ‘breaks’ the expression & doesnt animate the nested pre-comps one of which is a time remapped layer.
Explanation :
The project is a human head with time remapped mouth shapes and time remapped eyelid blinking.
Here’s the Hierarchy of my project :Head Comp
>Eyes
>> Left Eye>>> Left Eyelids Animation (Sequence of left eyelid closing)
>>> Eye_L
>>>> L_Eye_Pupil
>>>> L_Eye_EyeBall>> Right Eye
>>> Right Eyelids Animation
>>> Eye_R
>>>> R_Eye_Pupil
>>>> R_Eye_EyeBallNow, L_Eye_Pupil has a Null which is linked with the position of the pupil with this :
thisComp.layer("Left_Pupil_Control").transform.position/20
This expression is applied on the Pupil layer itself.The Null layer is named : Left_P_Ctrl
This null has a position expression
comp("Character Head").layer("Pupil_Control").transform.position
As you can see in the last expression the null Left_P_Ctrl is linked to a null in the main “Head Comp” which is named “Pupil_Control”
Now the idea is to animate the Pupil_Control which would control a null in both the right and the left eye (Left_P_Ctrl & Right_P_Ctrl) which would control the Pupil’s position.
Everything works fine here but just as long as I dont start keyframing the Pupil_Control. As soon as I start to, the pupils stop responding to the Null’s positions.
I have read other posts here & the adobe forums that this is caused because of the start time of the time remapped precomp layer is not zero in the main comp – which in my case would be the precomp containing the eye lid animation within the Eyes comp which is remapped and linked to a slider for animation in the main comp.
I tried to use this expression on the Left_P_Ctrl null :
C = comp("Character Head");ctrl = thisComp.layer("Left_P_Ctrl").transform.position/20;
L = C.layer("Eyes").layer("Eyelids Animation").layer("Eye_L");
ctrl.valueAtTime(time+L.startTime)
I know this isnt the correct way of doing it or in anyway close to being correct and in line 4 at L=C.layer blah blah blah I was just trying to point through the nesting to the layer that contained my null, offcourse thats not the way to do it.
The original code was sourced from this post forums.creativecow. net/thread /227/28144
So guys please tell me what to do to get this working.
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12 Replies
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If you can, strip the project down to the non-working state and upload it so I can take a look.
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Thnx Mr Dave for responding.Pick whipping would result in the same code which I wrote. comp(“Character Head”).layer(“Pupil_Control”).transform.position
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Will involve major reworking of all the assets as it’s a private NDA signed project…
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What is the duration of your time remapped comp?
If it is shorter than the comp it is nested in, you can have some problems.For projects like those, it typically works best when all nested comps are the same duration and have the same in point. This has saved me when working with problems just like the one you’re describing.
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Duration of the Eye lid animation is just a few frames.
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It doens’t animate at all or it does but at a different time?
You’ll have to account for those time discrepancies. Its hard for me to tell you the right expression without seeing the whole thing. Its usually just accounting for different layer inPoints, using the valueAtTime method.
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It doesnt animate at all when keyframing. Everything works as it should when there arent any keyframes.
I’ve stripped down the project to it’s bare minimum to show you guys where I am.
Download the file from GD : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3SViR0dADZkbDNVbEdFWThzdlU/view?usp=sharingIt should open in CS 5.5 & above versions.
Let me know if the link works.
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I’d try but out of my noobness I have created 2 sliders in 1 null.
One controls the blinking the other controls the mouth shape.
I’ve deleted all that data in the version I uploaded but I fear that if I change the duration of the time remapped comps it’ll throw off the entire lip syncing. -
I saw the project… the way your hierarchy is set will never work. You cannot hope to mantain a spacetime relation while desregarding time.
I mean, you can’t timeremmap your “eyes” comp, if you want anything inside it to keep any “position at a time” link to something outside it. Every eye blink animation remmap can only go after the position link (if you would precomp the Eye_pupil.ai layer for example).
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So could you suggest a work around on this ?
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