[Dan Ebberts]

It gives you the same result. layer() is pretty flexible. You can give it a single argument which can be either the name or the index of the layer (which is what you did), or you can give it two arguments–first a layer object and then a relative index from that layer (which is what the book did).

[Dan Ebberts]

Like this maybe (note that I left “Nul 2” spelled the way you have it):

x = thisComp.layer("Nul 2").transform.xPosition;
if(x >= 959.9 && x <= 960.1){
0;
}else{
20;
}

[Dan Ebberts]

Like this, maybe:

time < key(1).time ? loopIn("pingpong",1) : loopOut("pingpong",1)

[Dan Ebberts]

Try this:

minHold = .25;
maxHold = 1.5;
rampTime = .2;
rampAmount = 100;
minRampMult = .75;
maxRampMult = 1.25;
t = tPrev = 0;
rt = rampTime;
ra = rampAmount;
while (t <= time){
  seedRandom(t,true);
  hold = random(minHold,maxHold);
  rampMult = random(minRampMult,maxRampMult);
  rtPrev = rt;
  raPrev = ra;
  rt = rampTime*rampMult;
  ra = rampAmount*rampMult;
  period = rt*2 + hold;
  tPrev = t;
  t += period
}
deltaT = time - tPrev;
if (deltaT < rtPrev)
  y = linear(deltaT,0,rtPrev,0,raPrev)
else
  y = linear(deltaT,rtPrev,2*rtPrev,raPrev,0);
value + [0,y]

[Dan Ebberts]

I’m not sure if this is what you’re after, but it might give you some ideas. Apply the expression to a layer’s position property and look at the result in the graph editor.

minHold = .25;
maxHold = 1.5;
rampTime = .2;
rampAmount = 100;
t = tPrev = 0;
while (t <= time){
  seedRandom(t,true);
  hold = random(minHold,maxHold);
  period = rampTime*2 + hold;
  tPrev = t;
  t += period
}
deltaT = time - tPrev;
if (deltaT < rampTime)
  y = linear(deltaT,0,rampTime,0,rampAmount)
else
  y = linear(deltaT,rampTime,2*rampTime,rampAmount,0);
value + [0,y]

[Dan Ebberts]

Like this maybe:

tEase = 1;
if (time < (inPoint + outPoint)/2)
  ease(time,inPoint,inPoint+tEase,value,value - [0,50])
else
  ease(time,outPoint-tEase,outPoint,value - [0,50],value)

[Dan Ebberts]

There were a few typos in there, but I think this does what you descibe:

var cti = timeToFrames();
var tli = thisComp.layer("Controller").effect("TarLight 1 on")("Slider")
var tlo = thisComp.layer("Controller").effect("TarLight 1 off")("Slider")
var tli2 = thisComp.layer("Controller").effect("TarLight 2 on")("Slider")
var tlo2 = thisComp.layer("Controller").effect("TarLight 2 off")("Slider")
var frames = 1 / thisComp.frameDuration;
var fadeFrames = thisComp.layer(1).effect("Fade Time")("Slider");
var fadeTime =fadeFrames / frames;
var st = tli / frames;
var et = tlo / frames;
var st2 = tli2 /frames;
var et2 = tlo2 /frames;
gray = [99, 102, 106, 255]/255
blue = [3, 169, 244, 255]/255
if (cti < tlo)
  ease(time, st, st - fadeTime, gray, blue)
else if (cti < tlo + fadeFrames)
  ease(time, et, et + fadeTime, blue, gray)
else if (cti < tlo2)
  ease(time, st2 - fadeTime, st2, gray, blue)
else
  ease(time, et2, et2 + fadeTime, blue, gray);

[Dan Ebberts]

You need to structure your if tests so that they’re in chronological order, otherwise, (in this case) you’ll never get past this one:

else if (cti > tlo)

I haven’t tested this, but you should be able to replace all your if/else stuff with something close to this:

if (cti < tl0)
  ease(time, st, st - fadeTime, gray, blue)
else if (cti < tlo + fadeTime)
  ease(time, et, et + fadeTime, blue, gray)
else if (cti < tl02)
  ease(time, st2 - fadeTime, st2, gray, blue)
else{
  ease(time, et2, et2 + fadeTime, blue, gray);

[Dan Ebberts]

I think the reason it doesn’t work is that you have it applied to a text layer’s source text property and this line:

value*(area/maxArea);

is expecting that the expression’s property is scale. If you comment that line out you’ll see it comes up with 6600 for area. Not sure where you want to go with it from there.

[Dan Ebberts]

Should be do-able. It might look something like this:

c = comp("CompAreas");
maxArea = 99999; // whatever the area is for the largest country
str = "";
for (i = 1; i <= c.numLayers; i++){
  if (! (c.layer(i).name.indexOf(name) == 0)) continue;
  str = c.layer(i).name;
  break;
}
if (str != ""){
  area = parseInt(str.split(",")[1],10);
  value*(area/maxArea);
}else
  value

You’d probably want to add more error checking if other people will be using it (like making sure the layer name in CompAreas actually has a comma in it instead of just assuming it does).