[Dan Ebberts]

A better idea might be to un-parent the car from the null and just use smooth() expressions to link the position and rotation to the null’s values.

[Dan Ebberts]

It seems like you should be able to use smooth() to smooth out the parent’s rotation and position, subtract the parent’s actual rotation and position from that to create a delta, which you would then add to the child’s position/rotation. So I would think it would look like this (although I didn’t find any smooth parameters that worked very well):

d = parent.position.smooth(.5,10) - parent.position;
value + d;

[Dan Ebberts]

As far as I know, for any layer type that has a source file (image, video, etc.), the source file has to be imported into the project bin before you can use it to create a layer in a comp’s timeline. Is that what you’re asking (if you can bypass the file importing and go directly to creating an image layer in the timeline)?

[Dan Ebberts]

How is the car linked to the path now?

[Dan Ebberts]

>I’m surprised, the >loopIn()/>loopOut() can’t be used as js methods, or can they?<

loopIn() and loopOut() are methods of the property object, so you can use them in that way and actually apply them to properties other than the one hosting the expression and stick the result in a variable. For example, you could have a rotation expression like this:

yLoop = position.loopOut()[1];
yLoop - time*25

but you can’t get loopOut() to process some arbitrary calculation you came up with in the same expression–it has to be attached to a property (defaulting to the property hosting the expression).

[Dan Ebberts]

I’m not sure, based on your description, but try this. Add an Opacity Animator to your text (set the Opacity value to 0). Then add an Expression Selector, and set its Amount property to this expression:

f = timeToFrames(time);
if (textIndex == f){
  50;
}else if (textIndex < f){
  0;
}else{
  100;
}

[Dan Ebberts]

I have no idea if this gets you any closer, but this is how you could turn loopOut(“offset”) into a callable function where you could specify the time:

function loopOffset(theTime){
  if (numKeys > 1 && theTime > key(1).time){
    t1 = key(1).time;
    tn = key(numKeys).time;
    dt = tn - t1;
    v1 = key(1).value;
    vn = key(numKeys).value;
    dv = vn - v1;
    n = Math.floor((theTime - t1)/dt);
    t = (theTime - t1)%dt;
    return vn + (n-1)*dv + valueAtTime(t1 + t) - v1;
  }else{
    return value;
  }
}
f = timeToFrames(time);
offset = -thisComp.frameDuration/2;
if (f % 2){
  loopOffset(time + offset);
}else{
  loopOffset(time);
}

[Dan Ebberts]

loopOut() ignores and overwrites anything you’ve done previously in the expression. However, you can create your own code that does what loopOut() does but applies it to something you’ve calculated. I might be able to help if I understood exactly what it is that you’re trying to do.

[Dan Ebberts]

Rather than referring to it by name, you could just refer to it as thisComp.layer(1). Would that work?

r = thisComp.layer(1).sourceRectAtTime(time);
x = r.width + 100;
y = r.height + 100;
[x, y]

[Dan Ebberts]

When they changed AE’s JavaScript engine, it would no longer accept single-line if-else statements without the full curly bracket treatment, so I pretty much switched to the conditional (ternary) ? : operator, which is a kind of if-else shorthand.