[Brennanc]

Oh, I figured it out. I just link the color to the fill effect of a different layer running Dan’s expression.

Thanks anyway:)

[Brennanc]

One more quick issue related to this.
I’m actually trying to get Dan’s expression (https://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/sample-image.html) to work in Particular. There is a particle option called “color fill” that allows you to specify what color to fill custom particles with. The only problem is that for some reason Dan’s expression, which works beautifully on any other layer, doesn’t do the trick in this circumstance. It may be that Particular doesn’t support this new variable, but I thought it was worth it to ask.

Thanks!

[Brennanc]

Wow, thanks! Fortunately, I do have CS3 😉

[Brennanc]

Perfect! Thanks!

[Brennanc]

That’s the money. Thanks a bunch!

[Brennanc]

Works like a charm. Thanks Dan!

[Brennanc]

Thanks Dan, but i’ve noticed an oversight on my part. I’m trying to grab the x,y,z (which is under the position field) from a point light and apply it to my particular emitter. The problem is that in particular the x,y are on one field and z is on another (“position XY” and “position Z” respectively). So i tried pick-whipping from “position Z” to the just the z value of my light and added in “valueAtTime(0)” to look like this…

thisComp.layer(“particle follow”).transform.position.valueAtTime(0)

But i get an error “expression result must be of dimension 1, not 3”.

Any thoughts?

[Brennanc]

I’m actually working on a project right now where this is the main effect needed over about 25 shots. The solution that i’ve found is not in AE but using a 3d package (i use 3dsMax but i’m sure that most can do this).
So here it goes my friend…
1. Make your path in 3dsMax. in my project i’ve had to bring footage in on the background to match the camera moves (manually, nothing fancy).
2. animate your stroke in 3dsMax and create a camera to view it. This can be accomplished with a cylinder and the path deform modifier using the path for refrence.
3. Create a second camera and use the same path as a refrence for the camera’s animation. Basically, animate the camera along the path using the motion tab in 3dsMax. this camera will not be used to render the path, just to get the zdepth info from it.
4. Render camera 1 out as a 16bit .rpf sequence with all the options to get the path animation with alpha channel.
5. Now hide everything in the scene and render camera 2 out as an 8bit .rpf sequence.
6. In AE import both the .rpf sequences and bring them into your comp.
7. For each .rpf sequence, use the keyframe assistant to import the .rpf camera information.
8. Now use the info from your camera1 sequence as the active camera in AE and the info from camera2 as your effects position info.

This can be used to drive particle effects, lights, or any other effect that requires extensive 3d positional data to be matched to a camera. Sometimes you just have to think outside the box that AE came in 🙂
Good Luck!