[Dan Ebberts]

I think the problem might be that the gap gets scaled because of your parenting chain. I think I’d try to set it up without the explicit parenting (just handle positioning and scaling with expressions).

[Dan Ebberts]

I think you could just replace the last line with something like this:

p = [value[0]+x,thisComp.layer("orbitController").effect("yOrigin")("Slider")+y];
n = 15; // ease frames
ease(time,inPoint,inPoint+framesToTime(n),[thisComp.width,thisComp.height]/2,p)

[Dan Ebberts]

If you have the leader set up with your desired overshoot animation, then this on each of the followers should give a progressively amplified version of the leader’s animation (I set the delay and gain sliders to 0.1 for testing):

L = thisComp.layer("leader");
p = L.position;
d = L.effect("delay")("Slider");
g = L.effect("gain")("Slider");
offset = index - L.index;
deltaY = p.valueAtTime(time - d*offset)[1]-p.valueAtTime(0)[1];
value + [0,deltaY*(1 + offset*g)];

[Dan Ebberts]

I think it would be more like this (assuming your anchor point is centered):

a = thisComp.layer("CIRCLE-BLUE");
b = a.content("Ellipse 1").content("Ellipse Path 1").size;
c = a.toComp(a.anchorPoint + [b[0]/2,0]);

[Dan Ebberts]

Just in general, I think I’d base the increase on a calculation based on the layer index (relative to the leader), not on the animation of the previous layer, because cascading expressions like that in a long chain of layers can really cause a performance hit.

[Dan Ebberts]

I’m not sure, but it seems like you just need to get the animation right for the leader and then just have a time-delayed version of that for each of the followers with a simple follow expression like this:

L = thisComp.layer("leader");
d = L.effect("delay")("Slider");
y = L.transform.position.valueAtTime(time - d*(index - L.index))[1];
[value[0],y]

[Dan Ebberts]

You just need to enclose everything in an undo group:

app.beginUndoGroup("Add File");
// your code that changes stuff
app.endUndoGroup();

[Dan Ebberts]

Your new expression is doing calculations for each previous frame, which can be a significant computational load, especially if your comp is long and/or you apply it to a lot of layers. Your previous expression was only looking at the most recent keyframe, so it was much more cpu-friendly.

[Dan Ebberts]

It would help to see the keyframes and the slider settings.

[Dan Ebberts]

Your function works for me, although I would structure the loop a little differently:

    for (var i = 1; i <= app.project.numItems; i++) {
        var item = app.project.item(i);
        if (item.name.indexOf(fileName) > -1 && item instanceof FootageItem) {
            importedFile = item;
            break;
        }
    }