[Aaron Pozzer]

Dan has the answers even when he doesnt have the answers!

https://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/auto-orient-y-only.html

[Aaron Pozzer]

that did it! good stuff. i tried to add in an offset function as follows…

p = property;
fadeFrames = 10;
offset = .1;

if (p.numKeys > 1){
t0 = p.key(1).time;
t1 = p.key(p.numKeys).time;
t = framesToTime(fadeFrames);
if (time < (t0+t1)/2){
ease(time,t0-t+offset,t0,0,100)
}else{
ease(time,t1+offset,t1+t,100,0)
}
}else{
value
}

this works, but it seems what it does is offset the value changes start, but not its finish. so the fade still happens in 10 frames, it just waits to start the fade, and then the fade has to be accomplished in fewer frames. also, i think cause of your framesToTime i had to put the offset as .1, because i think its in time, not frames.

[Aaron Pozzer]

hey Dan. just wondering if its possible to add a time offset in there? as it stands now, the fades in/out start/end at the keyframes, and thats exactly correct, but not what i was expecting for some reason. its fine how it is… i just added extra frames at the head and tail of the animation to get the layers faded in when i wanted them, in relation to the animation. for some reason i thought the fade in/out would start before the 1st key and be 100% by the time it hit that 1st key, and then start fading out on the last key and be 0% however many frames after the last key.

again, its fine this way, as i can tweak it with additional keys, but right now the only thing i can change is how fast the fade in happens. it would be great if i could offset the effect by some frames so that each layer/property using the script doesnt start/end at the same time.

thanks!

[Aaron Pozzer]

great Dan! perfect as always. much appreciated.

[Aaron Pozzer]

hey Dan. thanks for making the above adjustment. i didnt even notice till just now when i came here to ask another follow up question. so, im trying to be proactive and figure stuff out for myself, but not having much luck.

im trying to modify the 1st expression you posted (since its the simplest) to serve as a general purpose monitor for the same property im trying to watch and drive the Z position of that null.

i want it to be able to drive things like opacity, birth rate, etc, on any property i want, so things will all turn on/off in relation to those keys, and i only have to animate one channel basically.

but!… the modification i was trying to make would seem to only require the time of the 1st and last keys. if i wanted to fade something in at the 1st key, and then fade it out at the last, any keys in between wouldnt matter.

i had a look at the options available. im not sure key(index) would work, cause the # of keys might change… so only the 1st key would be the same. nearestkey would use them all i think, so thats no good, and key(markerName)… well im not sure on this one. i dont know how to set a marker name for a key, unless it means just a regular marker with you set with the * key?

then i guess the other problem would be, once it hits the 1st key and the opacity is triggered to raise from 0 to 100, does that happen instantly? i guess so, unless you tell it otherwise… so i wouldnt know how to build in a frame buffer as it were, so it comes on over 5 or 10 frames.

so if you were to modify the above, im not sure if needs all the fancy easing and such. these just need to turn stuff on.

thanks again Dan!

[Aaron Pozzer]

awesome dan!

a question about ease. my ideal curve for the line all this stuff is controlling would be this sort of shape…

https://www.unifycommunity.com/wiki/images/e/e8/Mathfx-Bounce.png

…where the in and out points are hard, and the arc in the middle is smooth. is there a command like ease that will give this shape instead of the smooth shape of ease?

[Aaron Pozzer]

thats the ticket! worked great. if i wanted to be SUPER picky id ask if there was a way to increase the offset for the further away keys are. like if keys are more than 10 frames apart offset by ____, if more than 20 frames apart offset by _____… or some automatic scaling factor that would just do it automatically.

but ya, its fine now as it stands unless you wanna try and solve that one too.

thanks dan!

[Aaron Pozzer]

hey Dan. thanks for the response. so this KINDA works, but not quite.

i have my null object. lets say it has 4 position keys to its animation, and it just outlines a simple path. lets say the 1st key of this animation is on frame 10.

when i start at frame 0, the expression calculates the value i entered: -50 (i want the line to come closer to the camera, hence the negative value). as i scrub forward towards frame 10 (the first key), nothing happens. when i hit frame 10 the value is set to 0. as i keep scrubbing towards the next keyframe the value climbs all the way up to -50 and when it hits the next key it resets back down to 0. over and over for as many keys as there are in the animation.

so, this isnt the desired effect. this creates steps kinda, with the -50 z value always being right before the next key is reached. what i was after was that -50z was always in the middle of any 2 keys. so when its ON a key, its 0, and when its between any 2 keys its trying to get to -50 (or whatever value). the goal is to create arcs with the highest point of the arc being between any 2 keys.

i suppose using linear would give a series of pyramids/steps rather than arcs. perhaps ease is better suited for this expression?

anyway, does that make more sense? is it possible?

[Aaron Pozzer]

s’ok dan, i think i found a solution by switching from using a stroke effect to using a particle emitter that draws a line. this also gives me the option to raise the line up off the map. it also had the unexpected side effect of fixing the problem in the other thread…

but now i have a new issue. ill post it in a new thread.

thanks

[Aaron Pozzer]

thanks Dan, as always that worked. took me a few tries to figure out what thisComp.name was refering to, but i got it.

you were helping me with another issue a few months back and its come back to haunt me again. i posted up again last week, but im not sure if you saw it. if you wouldnt mind having a look here…

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/227/18903

… that would be great.

thanks again Dan!