[Dan Ebberts]

It should work if you change your last line to this:

col.toString() == white.toString() ? 0 : 100

[Dan Ebberts]

I haven’t tested this at all, but basically I would modify the expressions so that they’d look like this one for your Right Outlines:

delay = .1;
myDelay = (thisComp.layer("Right Center Outlines").index - index)*delay;
s = thisComp.layer("Effector").effect("Slider Control")("Slider").valueAtTime(time - myDelay);
ease(s,0,540,[2020,540],[960,540]);

It seems like you should also be able to automate the calculation of the destination position, based on the difference in layer index between the leader (Right Center Outlines for the ones on the right) and the follower, but I didn’t tackle that.

[Dan Ebberts]

What’s a sliding number counter?

[Dan Ebberts]

I just put those in to represent the start and end times of the rectangle’s animation. Not sure if you would pick those up off of keyframes, or somewhere else (probably whatever was driving your scale animation).

[Dan Ebberts]

That’s more complex than I anticipated. I still can’t figure out what drives the timing of the rectangle’s animation, but assuming you know, I think you can just adjust the size expression for the rectangle like this:

var s = thisComp.layer("Justin RenegadeofFunk Lundy");
var start = s.inPoint;
var end = s.outPoint;
var mid = (end-start)/2;
var w = s.sourceRectAtTime(mid).width;
var h = s.sourceRectAtTime(mid).height;
var endVal = [w,h];
var startVal = [0,h];
var startAnim = ??
var endAnim = ??
linear(time,startAnim,endAnim,startVal,endVal)

and the position expression for the rectangle like this:

var s = thisComp.layer("Justin RenegadeofFunk Lundy");
var start = s.inPoint;
var end = s.outPoint;
var mid = (end-start)/2;
var w = s.sourceRectAtTime(mid).width/2;
var h = s.sourceRectAtTime(mid).height/2;
var l = s.sourceRectAtTime(mid).left;
var t = s.sourceRectAtTime(mid).top;
endVal = [w+l,h+t];
startVal = endVal - [w,0];
var startAnim = ??
var endAnim = ??
linear(time,startAnim,endAnim,startVal,endVal)

although (based on the video you posted) you may want a custom easing rather than linear(), which may add another level of complexity.

[Dan Ebberts]

Absolutely.

[Dan Ebberts]

I think you could get there, if you animated the rectangle’s size between [0,h] and [w,h] and also animate the rectangle’s position offset between [-w/2,0] and [0,0]. I could probably be more specific if I knew what was driving the timing of your animation.

[Dan Ebberts]

Have you thought about animating the x value of the rectangle’s size, rather than the scale?

[Dan Ebberts]

OK, so it would be something like this:

m = thisComp.marker;
val = value;
if (m.numKeys > 0){
  n = m.nearestKey(time).index;
  if (time < m.key(n).time) n--;
  if (n > 0){
    c = m.key(n).comment;
    if (c == "S"){
      val = 100;
    }else if (c == "F"){
      if (n < m.numKeys){
        val = linear(time,m.key(n).time,m.key(n+1).time,100,0);
      }else{
        val = 0;
      }
    }else if (c == "H"){
      val = 0;
    }
  }
}
val

It could be more complicated, for example, if there could be markers that don’t have a comment of “S”, “F”, or “H”, or you have them in the wrong order, but this should give you the idea. This is set up for comp markers. If you want to use layer markers, just change the first line to:

m = marker;

[Dan Ebberts]

If there will be more than 3 markers in the sequence, I think you need to show how that looks after the 3rd marker, because it’s not clear (to me at least). But yes, there should be an algorithm that works, once you define all the rules.