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play a number of specified keyframes on a layer
Hello,
I’ve dabbled in letting ChatGPT write an expression for me that does, what I’m looking for in this posts topic, but sadly, no amount of coaxing gets the AI to write code that does the job. Can anyone here help me out? What’s wrong with this code?
// Set the range of keyframes to play
var startKeyframe = 1; // Change this value to the index of the first keyframe you want to play
var endKeyframe = 5; // Change this value to the index of the last keyframe you want to play
// Calculate the total duration of the keyframe range
var rangeDuration = key(endKeyframe).time – key(startKeyframe).time;
// Calculate the time offset for each keyframe
var timeOffset = rangeDuration / (endKeyframe – startKeyframe);
// Calculate the time of the outpoint of the layer
var outpoint = thisLayer.outPoint;
// Calculate the start time of the keyframe range
var startTime = outpoint – rangeDuration;
// Loop through the keyframes in the range and set their values at the corresponding times
for (var i = startKeyframe; i <= endKeyframe; i++) {
var keyframeTime = startTime + (i – startKeyframe) * timeOffset;
valueAtTime(keyframeTime);
}
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5 Replies
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An expression cannot “set” the values of keyframes.
It can only yield a value which is what the property should be at the current time. That value can be based on the keyframes and the timing of layers, but it won’t change those keyframes.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “play a number of keyframes”. The code appears to want to do that based on the outpoint of the layer.
Since the expression as it is now is wrong, maybe you should explain in plain words what you expect it to achieve, because now we don’t know what to change to get to your expectation. -
Let me try to clarify what I mean 🙂
What I want is for AE to play through a number of keyframes defined by a starting and ending keyframe, but timeshifted to the outpoint of the layer. E. g. if I have 6 keyframes on a layer, from 0 secs to 5 secs, I’d like to play keyframes 4 to 6, but at the outpoint of the layer minus the time necessary to play through these keyframes.
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Something like this would work, but it can be a bit more simplified:
var startKeyframe = 4; // Change this value to the index of the first keyframe you want to play
var endKeyframe = 6; // Change this value to the index of the last keyframe you want to play
// Calculate the total duration of the keyframe range
var rangeDuration = key(endKeyframe).time - key(startKeyframe).time;
// Calculate the time of the outpoint of the layer
var outpoint = thisLayer.outPoint;
var t = linear(time, outpoint-rangeDuration, outpoint, key(startKeyframe).time, key(endKeyframe).time);
valueAtTime(t); -
Awesome, that worked! Well, sort of, because the expression ignores all keyframes that come before the specified keframes, but that is, because again, I did not specify my question particularly well. So what I need is for all keyframes before the specified keyframes to be played normally. But I do have an idea on how to achieve this :).
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This is the final code I came up with, added by some help from ChatGPT.
startKeyframe = 4;
endKeyframe = 6;
rangeDurationOut = key(endKeyframe).time – key(startKeyframe).time;
if (time < key(startKeyframe).time) {
// Play through keyframes from keyframe(1) until startKeyframe
t = linear(time, inPoint, key(startKeyframe).time, key(1).time, key(startKeyframe).time);
} else if (time < key(startKeyframe).time + rangeDurationOut) {
// Pause at startKeyframe until rangeDurationOut is reached
t = key(startKeyframe).time;
} else {
// Continue playing from startKeyframe until endKeyframe
t = linear(time, outPoint – rangeDurationOut, outPoint, key(startKeyframe).time, key(endKeyframe).time);
}
valueAtTime(t);
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