to.world expression for pointing at a layer

Walter Soyka
October 18, 2020 at 2:34 am
Sure. toWorld is exactly what you want — it translates a point from a layer’s local space to world space.

This expression should point one layer at another, irrespective of their parenting chains (ancestry?):
```
lookAt(thisLayer.toWorld(thisLayer.transform.anchorPoint), thisComp.layer("Target").toWorld(thisComp.layer("Target").transform.anchorPoint));
```
Greg Howell
October 18, 2020 at 2:55 am

Hi Walter,

Thanks for your help. Do I paste this in the pointers rotational value?, because it doesn’t seem to work..
Walter Soyka
October 18, 2020 at 3:41 am

It’s for the Orientation property.
Greg Howell
October 18, 2020 at 4:02 am

Do you mean the anchor point property?, because theres only an orientation property in 3d. This is 2d. I pasted it in, but it doesn’t point at the target. See attached.. thanks!
Dan Ebberts
October 18, 2020 at 10:19 pm
Probably like this rotation expression (you may have to add or subtract 90, depending on how you have your pointer set up):
```
T = thisComp.layer("Target");
v = T.toComp(T.anchorPoint) - toComp(anchorPoint);
radiansToDegrees(Math.atan2(v[1],v[0]))
```
Greg Howell
October 18, 2020 at 10:23 pm

This works perfectly. Thankyou!

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