[Dan Ebberts]

I’m not sure what you want to do with the result, but this expression will fill the frames array with all the frames where a close encounter first occurs. However, on each frame, this expression has to examine the entire comp, so you might want to consider converting the expression to keyframes at some point if processing time becomes an issue:

var rangeMin = 100;
var posDistance = effect("Shortest Distance")("Slider"); 
frames = [];
inRange = false;
for (i = 0; i <= timeToFrames(thisComp.duration); i++) {
  if (inRange){
    if (posDistance.valueAtTime(framesToTime(i)) > rangeMin){
      inRange = false;
    }
  }else{
    if (posDistance.valueAtTime(framesToTime(i)) <= rangeMin){
      frames.push(i);
      inRange = true;
    }
  }
}

[Dan Ebberts]

I think that will look something like this:

cb = thisComp.layer("Expression_Ctrls").effect("Checkbox Control")("Checkbox").value;
leading = cb ? 90 : 77.7;
text.sourceText.style
	.setFontSize(thisComp.layer("Expression_Ctrls").effect("SLIDER-3_REGELS")("Slider"))
	.setAutoLeading(false)
	.setLeading(thisComp.layer("Expression_Ctrls").effect("SLIDER-3_REGELS")("Slider")/100*leading)
	.setAllCaps(true);

[Dan Ebberts]

Probably. It depends on how you have things set up. Say you have all your underlying elements in a precomp. In an outer comp, you apply the Lens Flare effect to the precomp layer. You could then have an expression like this on the Flare Brightness property:

p = effect("Lens Flare")("Flare Center");
s = sampleImage(p,[.5,.5],false,time);
rgbToHsl(s)[2]*100

I’m not sure about the matte layer, but depending on what you’re doing you can probably incorporate that into this expression as well.

[Dan Ebberts]

toFixed() converts your numeric result to a string. Then your next operation has to convert it back to a number. You’d have a more predictable result if you only use toFixed() on the final step, like this maybe:

posterizeTime(5);
x = random()+2;
y = x;
z = (24+y*8).toFixed(4);

[Dan Ebberts]

You could do something like that with a time-remapped precomp that has all your sound effects arranged at different times and a time remapping expression that plays the sounds in response to typing “events”. The implementation would depend on how you have your type animation set up and what info the expression has available to trigger the different sounds.

[Dan Ebberts]

That would be a tricky algorithm because the position and scale of each word is dependent on all the other words. Offhand, I can’t think of a reasonable expressions-based solution for something like that.

[Dan Ebberts]

Is it possible that there is more than one comp with that name?

[Dan Ebberts]

I don’t think an expression on a subsequent animator is going to be able to see the text created by the offset animator. I think it will get the original text. That’s why I was wondering about creating the offset text within the source text expression.

[Dan Ebberts]

Yes, but a Fill Color animator only gives you access to one additional color. I suppose you could have multiple animators.

[Dan Ebberts]

textIndex can only be used in an expression for the Amount property of an Expression Selector. What are you doing with character offset exactly? You might be able to incorporate it into the Source Text expression.