[Andrei Popa]

Add this to scale:

var padding = 500;

value * (width-padding*2)/sourceRectAtTime(time,false).width;

To make sure the text stays in the middle, you could add this to the anchorPoint and then press ctrl+home to place it in the middle of the comp.

var myWidth = sourceRectAtTime(time,false).width;
var left = sourceRectAtTime(time,false).left;
var myHeight = sourceRectAtTime(time,false).height;
var top = sourceRectAtTime(time,false).top;
[left+myWidth/2,myHeight/2+top]

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Andrei Popa]

How do you choose the 4 positions? By proximity? You wish to activate/deactivate this behaviour with your checkbox?

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Andrei Popa]

I think that if you define a global variable in one of your scripts, something like “var myText=UI.textbox.text”(i don’t know if it will be the same for your UI), you can use it in the other. Just be careful with the naming, so you don’t use it somewhere else.

I know that After Effects stores globally the variables if they are not within functions.

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Andrei Popa]

You could write it more beautiful like this:
((thisComp.layer("Text").text.sourceText =="") ? 0 : 100

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Andrei Popa]

I think you need to add the event listener to your text field, not to the app. But I don’t know of a way to make it listen the save of the project.

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Andrei Popa]

It is possible but it is exponentially more difficult.
You need to create some arrays of intervals and see in which interval the time fits.
Then you need to see which time from the precomp you need to use in the given interval.

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Andrei Popa]

This has been a bit more difficult than i first imagined.

You need to create a control layer with 3 sliders: Duration, Forground layers, Layers numbers.

The expression takes one value from duration keyframes as the duration of the animation for each cycle. Ex: Duration has 3 keyframes:1,2,3. The first 3 cycles will have the duration of the animation 1,2 respectively 3. It does not matter where the keyframes are in time. After 3 cycles, the animation continues with the last duration for all the folowing cycles.

If no keyframe is present in Duration slider, it will take its value and create cycles with that.

You need to add this exression to the opacity of your layers:

layersNumber = thisComp.layer("Control Layer").effect("Layers Number")("Slider");
forGroundLayers = thisComp.layer("Control Layer").effect("Foreground Layers")("Slider");
dur = thisComp.layer("Control Layer").effect("Duration")("Slider");//Duration for the animation

function extractCycles(myDur){
cycleValues = [inPoint];
for (var i=1; i<=myDur.numKeys; i++){
cycleValues.push(cycleValues[i-1] + myDur.key(i).value * layersNumber);
}
if (myDur.numKeys == 0) var cycleValues = myDur.value;
return cycleValues;
}

cycleStarts = extractCycles(dur);
lastCycleEnd = cycleStarts[cycleStarts.length-1];
myIndex = index-1-forGroundLayers;

if (dur.numKeys>0){
if (time < lastCycleEnd){
//Check to see in which cycle we fit
var i = cycleStarts.length-1;
while(cycleStarts[i] > time && i!=0){
i--;
}
cycleLength = cycleStarts[i+1]-cycleStarts[i];
thisDuration = cycleLength/layersNumber;
(((time-cycleStarts[i]-myIndex*thisDuration) % cycleLength) <= thisDuration) ? 100 : 0;

}else{
//Continuously loops with the last duration
(((time-lastCycleEnd-myIndex*dur.key(dur.numKeys).value) % (dur.key(dur.numKeys).value*layersNumber)) <= dur.key(dur.numKeys).value) ? 100 : 0;
}
}else{
((time-inPoint-myIndex*dur) % (dur*layersNumber) <= dur) ? 100 : 0;
}

And here is the aep project

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Andrei Popa]

This has been way harder than i first imagined ????

You need 3 sliders on your control layer: Forground layers, Duration and Number of layers.
Add this expression to opacity to each of the layers:
layersNumber = thisComp.layer("Control Layer").effect("Layers Number")("Slider");
forGroundLayers = thisComp.layer("Control Layer").effect("Foreground Layers")("Slider");
dur = thisComp.layer("Control Layer").effect("Duration")("Slider");//Duration for the animation

function extractCycles(myDur){
cycleValues = [inPoint];
for (var i=1; i<=myDur.numKeys; i++){
cycleValues.push(cycleValues[i-1] + myDur.key(i).value * layersNumber);
}
if (myDur.numKeys == 0) var cycleValues = myDur.value;
return cycleValues;
}

cycleStarts = extractCycles(dur);
lastCycleEnd = cycleStarts[cycleStarts.length-1];
myIndex = index-1-forGroundLayers;

if (dur.numKeys>0){
if (time < lastCycleEnd){
//Check to see in which cycle we fit
var i = cycleStarts.length-1;
while(cycleStarts[i] > time && i!=0){
i--;
}
cycleLength = cycleStarts[i+1]-cycleStarts[i];
thisDuration = cycleLength/layersNumber;
(((time-cycleStarts[i]-myIndex*thisDuration) % cycleLength) <= thisDuration) ? 100 : 0;

}else{
//Continuously loops with the last duration
(((time-lastCycleEnd-myIndex*dur.key(dur.numKeys).value) % (dur.key(dur.numKeys).value*layersNumber)) <= dur.key(dur.numKeys).value) ? 100 : 0;
}
}else{
((time-inPoint-myIndex*dur) % (dur*layersNumber) <= dur) ? 100 : 0;
}

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Andrei Popa]

Hey. I’m not at the office until monday morning CET and I don’t have After Effects at home.
I’ll try to make something work then and reply, in case anyone else does not do it before me 😀

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.

[Andrei Popa]

createPath(points = [a,b,c], isClosed = true)

Andrei
My Envato portfolio.