[Constanti Dinu]

thank you for your answer. i dont need the use of a camera, i need a 3d null to be moved anywhere on the visible surface of the globe, and if i rotate or move the globe itself, the null should stay on the country i placed it. like a pin on the map. just that the map is a cc sphere earth

[Constanti Dinu]

i want the shores of the continent with mask, so it can be vector, this way i wont have edged border when i zoom in, and also can add a stroke to have a beautiful borderline, and not some pixelated one.

file is RGB, i use AE CS5, 8 GB RAM, i dont use GPU acceleration. the problem is that i have googled the error, but i couldnt find it anywere. i tend to think there is a maximum number of vertices that can be used on a mask, but it’s just a hunch.

[Constanti Dinu]

Yes, i know, i already did the map in Photoshop, but I also need it with masks in After Effects.

[Constanti Dinu]

YOU SIR, ARE A GENIUS!

i’ve wrapped my head around this for a week. Your expression line worked like a charmThanks a lot, you actually kind of saved my project.

Also many thanks for everybody else who tried to help me here.

Cheers!

[Constanti Dinu]

unfortunately no, the same error

[Constanti Dinu]

the thing is i am using the same expression in other comp, with a little variation, where is linked to a color fill, and it works, like this:

try{
NUME=thisComp.layer(index).name;
x = Math.floor(comp(“WORK AREA”).layer(“COLOR US STATES”).effect(NUME)(“Slider”));
comp(“WORK AREA”).layer(“COLOR SCHEME”).effect(x)(“Color”);
} catch (err) {
x=[1,1,1,1]
}

[Constanti Dinu]

oh, i’m using the same expression ive used in other comp, with variations, that looks like this

try{
NUME=thisComp.layer(index).name;
x = Math.floor(comp(“WORK AREA”).layer(“COLOR US STATES”).effect(NUME)(“Slider”));
comp(“WORK AREA”).layer(“COLOR SCHEME”).effect(x)(“Color”);
} catch (err) {
x=[1,1,1,1]
}

here is linked to a color fill

[Constanti Dinu]

i did some tests, and it seems that the beam expression reads the original anchor point of the null, and not the numbers changed from the expression

[Constanti Dinu]

this is getting frustrating, is not working and i can’t tell why.
did is what i did.
in the main comps, i made nulls for every country, and parented the anchor point of the null to the country from another comp.

main comp europe comp
anchor point parent to
austria null ———————————–austria layer

main comp
trajectories null that contains:

layer control 1 – set on austria null
layer control 2
beam, with starting point expression
target = effect(“Layer Control”)(“Layer”);
fromComp(target.toComp(target.anchorPoint))

the expression is enabled and i got no error, the problem is it does not retrieving the true anchor point numbers from austria null. any thoughts?

[Constanti Dinu]

hey, i think i have the sollution:
how about i make a null in the “control panel” where i add the layer controls, copy all the countries layers in this comp, turn them invisible, and link their anchor points, to the original countries layers from the original comp? that way, i have layer controls where i want them, with the anchor information from another comp. what do you think?