[Dan Ebberts]

When I use your expression, it only brings across the text, not the style elements. I’m not sure why that’s not the case for you.

[Dan Ebberts]

Try this:

m = marker;
acc = 0;
if (m.numKeys > 0){
  n = m.nearestKey(time).index;
  if (time < m.key(n).time) n--;
  if (n > 0){
    if (n%2){
      acc = time - m.key(n).time;
    }
    for (i = 1; i < n; i += 2){
      acc += m.key(i+1).time - m.key(i).time;
    }
  }
}
valueAtTime(time - acc)

BTW, it does just the opposite (runs the animation between marker pairs) if you change the last line to this:

valueAtTime(acc)

[Dan Ebberts]

I think you just need to stick the result of your loop calculation into a variable and use that instead of value in the other part of your expression, like this:

val = loopIn() + loopOut() - value;
x = val[0];
xFactor = (100 - x);
y = 100 + xFactor;
[x, y];

[Dan Ebberts]

This should help illustrate what I mean. I went into your “torso and arms – slider controls” comp and added a Dropdown Menu Control to the “body control” layer. I edited the control to have five entries with these names : “left”, “left 3/4”, “front”, “right 3/4”, “right”.

Then I add this expression to the first Slider Control:

ddm = effect("Dropdown Menu Control")("Menu").value;
ddm == 2 ? 100 : 0

this to Slider Control 2:

ddm = effect("Dropdown Menu Control")("Menu").value;
ddm == 3 ? 100 : 0

this to Slider Control 3:

ddm = effect("Dropdown Menu Control")("Menu").value;
ddm == 4 ? 100 : 0

and this to Slider Control 4:

ddm = effect("Dropdown Menu Control")("Menu").value;
ddm == 5 ? 100 : 0

Then, whichever position you select with the dropdown, all the pieces move into place.

I hope that’s helpful.

[Dan Ebberts]

Without really seeing the details, my guess is “probably”, but I’m wondering if you wouldn’t be better off with a dropdown menu control that lists your 5 poses and then all your expressions reference that control. Then you’d just keyframe the control (hold keyframes happen automatically) and everything should snap into place via the expressions.

[Dan Ebberts]

I think we need more info. What determines whether the value is 0 or 100? What happens to the values between the keyframes? A before-and-after example would be helpful.

[Dan Ebberts]

The only tip that comes to mind when generating a lot of keyframes, is to, whenever possible, create time and value arrays and use setValuesAtTimes() instead of looping through and doing individual setValueAtTime() operations.

[Dan Ebberts]

Like this, I think:

if(myLayer.property("Transform").property("Position").dimensionsSeparated){
  // do something
}else{
  // do something different
}

[Dan Ebberts]

I guess it depends on what you’re after exactly. If you just want to scale the text so that its width matches the comp width, a scale expression like this should work:

s = (thisComp.width/sourceRectAtTime(time,false).width)*100;
[s,s]

[Dan Ebberts]

It will probably look something like this (assumes that opening animation starts at time = 0 and closing animation starts at time = 5):

open = 1965;
close = 2012;
closeAnimStart = 5;
year = thisComp.layer("controller").effect("year")("Slider");
frame = timeToFrames(time);
t = time;
if (year >= close){
  while (year.valueAtTime(t) >= close){
    frame--;
    t = framesToTime(frame);
  }
  t += thisComp.frameDuration;
  closeAnimStart + time - t;
}else if (year >= open){
  while (year.valueAtTime(t) >= open){
    frame--;
    t = framesToTime(frame);
  }
  t += thisComp.frameDuration;
  time - t;
}else{
  0;
}