[Andy Engelkemier]

How does this work with rotation?

I’ve got a glow on an object in 2D. Well, that doesn’t work if it rotates. So I would like to do the 3D rotation in a nested composition, and apply a glow to the result. This worked great for the position, but I nee to match the orientation. The layer I’m using for position is liked to another, so it appears to have no rotation.

I tried:
L = comp(“Ignite 4 animation”).layer(“u Outlines”);
L.toWorld(L.transform.orientation);

But at the start time, it should be orientation 0,0,0, but it’s actually 49.5, 347.5,0 so I’m a bit lost.

I did get it to do what I want, but not in the way I was hoping. I’m just linking the rotation to the Null I’m using to control rotation. And I’m hooking the position to a copy of the same layer that I’m simply turning off.

Is there an easier way to precomp a layer and have it’s attributes automatically assigned to the appropriate places via expressions? That would be killer. It’s pretty annoying to have to change everything to comp. I’m not sure if there is better way of doing this.

What I’m trying to learn here is if you can match the world orientation. It’s not seeming to work for me how I expected. Something is happening, it just doesn’t make sense to me yet.

[Andy Engelkemier]

Shoot. After a coffee my google skills suddenly started working.
Dan Ebberts to the rescue. He posted up the answer somewhere else. I used this, and it’s like magic.

L = thisComp.layer(“Null 3”);
L.toWorld(L.anchorPoint);

[Andy Engelkemier]

Thanks for the update. That was my problem.
I don’t get it though. I create a new file and it says “number of artboards: 1”, i’m using the 720 template.
Hit OK.
How many artboards do I have? 2!?!?

Anyway, I deleted the giant artboard, deleted my old shapes, reloaded footage after saving, converted again and they are magically in the correct position. It’s a little annoying I have to convert each layer 1 at a time, but it’s better than having to copy and paste.

Thanks so much for the post. Google Did find the answer I was looking for because of it.

[Andy Engelkemier]

I do agree with you. And if someone has tips on how to lay out a file with layers that will most likely need to change times later, then I welcome seeing their attempt. I haven’t seen any tutorials specifically addressing this, so haven’t really learned the best way to do it. I’ve been using AE since 5.5. I’m not an expert, but I’m fairly proficient.

Although I think it is always best to think ahead of your project so you know what might give you the most flexibility, you also will find need for scripts/software improvements along the way. If that wasn’t the case we wouldn’t have masks. So I’m just supposed to shoot/create my footage correct the first time, and if I need some area of it different then I have to do it again? Well that was a need, so a feature was added. I also use Rhino3D and they are extremely responsive when it comes to scripts. I was getting junk often, so needed to select all the small parts to help speed up weeding through tiny pieces. A script was created that allowed me to select objects smaller than a specified bounding box. They have done that for many things, and have implemented a few of those scripts into their new software.

It’s not that I expect there to be some sort of magic script. But if you don’t ask if there is a better way, how are you to learn of better ways to do things?

[Andy Engelkemier]

I am aware of that function, and I would recommend Ctrl click, as shift click would only work for a group of layers, or layers next to the first selected.

This moves the entire layer. What I’m looking to do is move the End of a layer along with any keyframes. Currently, you can’t do that at all, unless maybe that is possible with a script.

ideally what I would be looking for is a way to control everything with a time before/after a point, and move it forward or back a specific amount. So in/outs, markers, keys, anything that is at a specific time. I feel like it wouldn’t be impossible to do through a script.

[Andy Engelkemier]

I guess I wish you could just design things so you can move layers around as groups more automatically.
Like, if layerB starts 15 frames before layerA ends then you could move around layerA to your hearts content and know that layerB will start at the appropriate time. If I could set up my whole file with those sorts of timed relationships then I could just add some time to one layer, and everything else will move aside to make room.

I was hoping for a different solution, like that. This video is very simple. Like, powerpoint simple. Yet it takes just as long to edit as if it were video or animations. You’d think just moving shapes around with no footage more than 1 frame, it could be quick and easy.

[Andy Engelkemier]

Maybe I wasn’t clear in the way I wrote what I’m currently doing, but that is exactly what I am currently doing. I was hoping to find something more like a ripple edit. I would much rather add/remove time in the composition I am working in, especially if that time is just sitting there doing nothing. Maybe I’ve held an action for 6 seconds in order to read something. Then we change it to only be a title, so should now be 2-3 seconds. I have to cut that down, but then I want to just subtract the 3-4 seconds from everything else as well. If this is something that happens early in a project you would Definitely not want to precomp and timeremap.

[Andy Engelkemier]

Oh, that totally works. I just have to keep an eye on accidentally reordering things. I manually did that on the previous project, but I’ll have to do something similar on my current one, so I can use that for sure.
Thanks Annebelle

[Andy Engelkemier]

My preference isn’t working. It was set to 1 second (which isn’t what it imported as). I changed it to 1 minute, what I want. I imported again and the composition was 1 frame.

I realized that the last sequence of images I created was 1 second.
So my solution was to grab two images in the project window and create a composition from them. That opens a window that asks if you want them sequenced, their duration, etc. That’s the duration my PSD import is using, not the one from preferences.

This is AE 5.5. Am I alone in that? Is that desired or perhaps a bug?

[Andy Engelkemier]

I think if I take some time later and read your IK script then I could probably do it. I think the layers need to share the same space in order for it to point to the right thing. But that’s a more complicated script than I’m use to so for now it’s animated. It’s only about 10 seconds of animation, then I looped it.

I’ll explore it a bit later. This is one of those projects where you just do it and move on. Go back and learn some things you missed later. I’ll need something to read this weekend anyway.