-
Trying to move an object’s position through a dataset of points with an expression
Hey all,
I have a data set of around 500 X,Y points that I’d like an object to jump to in succession. I’d like the object to sit at each spot for roughly three frames and then move on.Is there a simple way to do this using an Expression on the Position of the object?
I’ve been scouring the internet but I’m new to expressions and have a feeling I’m searching down the wrong rabbit hole.
My guess is there’s a bit of code that could be inserted between each position using TextWrangler or something like it that would say something like:
Go here [first position] for 3 frames.
Then go here [second position] for 3 frames.
And then just repeat that code all the way through?
I might be way way off on this though.Here are the first five positions if that helps:
172,164
576,412
340,668
896,332
824,832Also, The Comp size is 1920×1080.
Thank you so much in advance for any help or advice you could give me!
All the best,
Gregor -
7 Replies
-
I’d set up all of the keyframe information in a spreadsheet and then just paste it in.
See this page for details.
———————————————————————————————————
Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
——————————————————————————————————— -
It could get a little ugly with 500 points, but something like this should work:
data = [[172,164],[576,412],[340,668],[896,332],[824,832]];
holdFrames = 3;
idx = Math.min(Math.floor(timeToFrames(time-inPoint)/holdFrames),data.length-1);
data[idx]Dan
-
Going off of what Dan said, if you could get the points into CSV or some other regularly-parseable format, just regex them (or simple find/replace commas with bracket pairs) into the aforementioned data format.
-
Dan,
Thanks so much for this!
Works like a charm!
Best,
Gregor -
Great! Just what i needed! Do you know how to animate the object between etch position?
-
Like this maybe:
data = [[172,164],[576,412],[340,668],[896,332],[824,832]];
holdFrames = 3;
moveFrames = 15;
n = Math.floor(timeToFrames(time-inPoint)/(holdFrames+moveFrames));
if (n < data.length - 1){
f = timeToFrames(time-inPoint)%(holdFrames+moveFrames);
if (f < holdFrames){
data[n]
}else{
ease(f,holdFrames,holdFrames+moveFrames,data[n],data[n+1]);
}
}else
data[data.length-1]
Dan
-
Thank you so much Dan! You saved my day! I just started using expression in AF so this is a new area for me. I will use it to create an animated graph that changes values over time based on data from excel. Great work! Thanks again!
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up