[Adam Greenberg]

I was thinking that also, until I replaced 2 with 200 and got the exact same result which means the time part of my expression is not affecting it at all.

I can only guess that the definition of L needs a fixed time associated with it because even thought rect is well defined, the L must be looking at the text layer at every frame. It’s so frustrating knowing that the logic is there but I’m missing a command that I dont yet understand. some sort of value at time. I guess in the meantime I will duplicate my text layers, mute them, expression them to the source text of the real layers, remove all key frames from them, and add a correction slider in case one day a user goes in and plays with the character settings of that layer which would change the math a little.

[Adam Greenberg]

I tested something. I added a new variable s with

S=thisComp.layer(“test”).marker.key(“1”).time;

I Tested the value at s and it is constant.

but when I replace 2 with s in the expression, it still doesn’t work. It’s still animating the value. So the problem must be the way L is defined. Can I make L look at the title layer but only at a specific time. I tried to write it and rewrite it and I cannot figure it out.

There must be a way for me to define L as this comp layer title but only at time s.

Thanks.

[Adam Greenberg]

Hmm. It’s not working. It’s still animated

[Adam Greenberg]

Sorry. First line was missing.

gap=30;

[Adam Greenberg]

Yes Kevin, my thoughts exactly for that particular example. But I have to say your solution s perfect for a different problem I had where the text is aligned to the right.

Because when I dont need this extra text, i need the last part of that line to move back into proper position so I added an if layer active else statement looking for that other layer to be active or not. Even though we technically never see that actual layer, I just left the opacity at 0 and it works as a switch. Works like a charm, here is the exact code thanks to you;

on source text

if(thisComp.layer(“small text”).active) value + ‘ ‘ + thisComp.layer(“small text”).text.sourceText else value

on range selector 1 start

txt1 = text.sourceText ;

txt2 = thisComp.layer(“small text”).text.sourceText ;

if(thisComp.layer(“small text”).active) (100 – 100 * txt2.length / txt1.length ) else 100

on tracking amount

if(thisComp.layer(“small text”).active) -17 else 0

[Adam Greenberg]

This is really fantastic work Kevin. Thanks again

[Adam Greenberg]

Kevin, I should also note that the above expression is forcing after effects to consider this added text in the auto – centering. It should not. It is almost like a trademark, it should not be considered at all in the design.

[Adam Greenberg]

Thanks very much Kevin. I will try this, but let me add one more thing I forgot to mention.

Let us assume the small text is not a text layer but a precomp. so the size does not need to change, it has been predetermined.

would anything change in this workflow ?

[Adam Greenberg]

Kevin, what if I don’t want to parent it. I may have other things that the text layer is doing that I don’t want the null to follow. I figured out how to modify the beginning by writing the following;

rect = thisComp.layer(“titre”).sourceRectAtTime() ;

y = rect.top + rect.height ;

value + [ 0, y-160 ]

but the problem is the null moves exponentially away from the text, as the text goes into more and more lines. I’m sure it’s an easy fix but I cant figure out the logic on this one, especially rect.top

Thanks again for any help

[Adam Greenberg]

Thanks Kevin, yes this looks amazing. I’m going to try this.

Thanks so much