[Dan Ebberts]

I guess there would be a couple of approaches. One would be to sample the value at a small amount of time on both sides of the target time and use those to calculate the velocity. Or, temporarily apply an expression, harvest the value, and delete the expression.

[Dan Ebberts]

Assuming your FIRST NAME layer is named “First Name”, a position expression for you last name like this should work:

gap = 20;
L = thisComp.layer("First Name");
r1 = L.sourceRectAtTime(time,false);
r2 = sourceRectAtTime(time,false);
hisRight = L.toComp([r1.left+r1.width,r1.top+r1.height])[0];
myLeft = toComp([r2.left,r2.height])[0];
value + [hisRight - myLeft + gap,0]

[Dan Ebberts]

You could capture the error using try/catch, like this example:

var myLayer = app.project.activeItem.layer(1);
var myEffect = "xxxx";
try{
    myLayer.property("Effects").addProperty(myEffect);
}catch(err){
    alert('"' + myEffect + '" is not a valid effect name.');
}

[Dan Ebberts]

For fill color, you should be able to just change the last line to this:

action.effect("Fill")("Color").valueAtTime(curT)

[Dan Ebberts]

It might be that you just need something like this:

src = slider;
if (src <= 8){
  x = linear(src,4,8,10,20);
}else if (src < 21){
  x = 25;
}else{
  x = linear(src,21,28,110,120);
}

but the fact that you’re using the word “trigger” makes me nervous…

[Dan Ebberts]

This should work:

m = comp("blind_resume_template").layer("blind_resume_control").effect("Sport")("Menu");
(m == 3 || m == 4) ? 100 : 0

[Dan Ebberts]

This should count all layers with BlueBox in the layer name:

n = 0;
keyword = "BlueBox";
for (i = 1; i <= thisComp.numLayers; i++){
  if (thisComp.layer(i).name.indexOf(keyword) > -1) n++;
}
n

[Dan Ebberts]

Maybe something like this:

E = thisComp.layer("Effector");
radius = 500;
stepSize = [10,0];
minHold = .1;
maxHold = .5;
offset = [10,0];
curOffset = [0,0];
t = inPoint;
while (t <= time){
  d = length(E.position,position+curOffset);
  t += linear(d,0,radius,maxHold,minHold);
  curOffset += offset;
}
value + curOffset - offset;

[Dan Ebberts]

What do you mean by “1st layer”, “2nd layer”, etc.?

If you mean that you have a chain of parented layers and you want each one farther down the chain to have more offset, you could do something like this:

L = thisLayer;
offset = 100;
while(L.hasParent){
  offset += 10;
  L = L.parent;
}
value + offset

[Dan Ebberts]

Ah yes. So if you just wanted to map the scale property actions of your button markers to the scale property marker animations on your null, you’d to need to modify it to something like this:

action = thisComp.layer("ANIM BUTTON");
n = 0;
if (marker.numKeys > 0){
  n = marker.nearestKey(time).index;
  if (marker.key(n).time > time){
    n--;
  }
}
if (n == 0){
  curT = 0;
}else{
  m = marker.key(n);
  myComment = m.comment;
  t = time - m.time;
  try{
    actMarker = action.marker.key(myComment);
    if (action.marker.numKeys > actMarker.index){
      tMax = action.marker.key(actMarker.index + 1).time - actMarker.time - thisComp.frameDuration;
    }else{
      tMax = action.outPoint - actMarker.time;
    }
    t = Math.min(t, tMax);
    curT = actMarker.time + t;
  }catch (err){
    curT = 0;
  }
}
action.scale.valueAtTime(curT)