[Cameron Walser]

Holy Cow – it was Chrome running in the background. I quit the browser, and suddenly it started working!

Thanks for that post!

[Cameron Walser]

This is a crude work around, but it works:

Save one image of the brush stamp/profile as a PNG out of PSD with transparency. Take it into after effects, and put it in a precomp. Take that brush precomp in a new comp, and animate it the way you want the stroke to move. Choose “auto-orient” if that is important to you. Then Precomp that motion, and apply “Echo” to this comp. The catch? You have to select 300+ echos… But it does work.

[Cameron Walser]

Dan maybe you’ll know the answer to this one –
I’ve made a functional comp with the expression, finally, and the expression references Expression Sliders on a null layer. So after I duplicate the layer a thousand times, I can simply adjust the sliders on the one layer. Here’s the question – what if I want to change the expression itself? Do I have to re-duplicate the layer 1000 times? Or is there some way to reference a “Master” expression?

Latest expression posted just FYI

dur = 1;
x = thisComp.layer("NULL PARAMETERS").effect("X_Origin")("Slider");
f = (timeToFrames(time));
yOrigin = 500;
seedRandom(index,true);

y = linear(time, inPoint, inPoint + dur, thisComp.layer("NULL PARAMETERS").effect("Y_Origin")("Slider"), (thisComp.layer("NULL PARAMETERS").effect("Y_Origin")("Slider") - (random (thisComp.layer("NULL PARAMETERS").effect("Least")("Slider"), thisComp.layer("NULL PARAMETERS").effect("Most")("Slider")) ) ) );

[x, y]

[Cameron Walser]

Awesome thank you – one more quick question Dan –

1) How in the world do you have time to answer all these questions?!
🙂

[Cameron Walser]

Oh shoot – I should add this new problem in too.

I want to add a random value to the position’s translation, but the expression recalculates the random value that it adds every time. See below.

Basically I want to create an expression that translates a layer a random amount between a specified start and stop time (which ideally will depend on the layer’s own start and stop time, so I can randomize that as well) – Then I can duplicate the hell out of that layer, and slide the layers in time, and have a whole bunch of layers translating different amounts…

PS the garbled characters should be <
something odd going on here in ASCII land

beginTime = inPoint;
endTime = outPoint;

x = transform.position[0]
yOrigin = 520;
yDelta = random (-10,10);

if (beginTime &lt; = time && time &lt; = endTime ) {

newY = yOrigin + timeToFrames() * yDelta; }
else newY = yOrigin;

[ x, newY]


[Cameron Walser]

Hi – I hope this hasn’t been answered above. Very helpful thread!

So I’m trying to have a simple translation expression evaluate between a start and stop time, but when it ends, I want the object to retain it’s translation it ended up with at the end of the expression’s evaluation. As it currently is, the object jumps back to it’s original position, which is no surprise….!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

beginTime = 1;
endTime = 30;

x = transform.position[0]
yOrigin = 520;
yDelta = -10;

if (beginTime &lt;= timeToFrames(time) && timeToFrames(time) &lt;= endTime ) {

newY = yOrigin + timeToFrames() * yDelta; }
else newY = yOrigin;

[ x, newY]

[Cameron Walser]

BOOYAH!

I got it – Java also counts folders as project items, so it wasn’t referencing the correct main comp, etc., etc.

Thank you for the inspiration, btw ! Very satisfying to write an actual script, and see it replace over 1100 layers all at once…

[Cameron Walser]

Okay – this is awesome, because I think it’s going to work with a little tweaking… and YES! I’m stuck…

This is what I have, and I think it’s close

(BTW I pieced it together by reading your motionscript site, and, ironically, another post from you on this site…!)

I think it gets stuck on mainComp.layer(i) because it doesn’t know what layer “i” is…..?

{
var proj = app.project;
var precompFolder = proj.item(1);
var mainComp = proj.item(4);
for (i = 1; i <= precompFolder.numItems; i++) {
var newSource = precompFolder.item(i);
mainComp.layer(i).replaceSource(newSource, true);

}
}

[Cameron Walser]

Thanks Dan – Yeah, I figured a script would really help here. And no, I have no experience scripting in AE (only in Maya, and even that is limited)…

I’m up to layer 303, getting carpal tunnel, and considering learning Java just to finish this 🙂

[Cameron Walser]

I found the answer to one of these questions – https://www.crgreen.com/aescripts/

selected_comps_changer

awesome