[Dan Ebberts]

One way – arrange your layers in a circle, position a 3D null at the center of the circle, make the null the parent of the other layers, and add this expression to the y rotation property of the layers:

-thisComp.layer(“Null 1”).transform.yRotation

Then animate the null’s y rotation.

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

You can add a y offset to an expression by appending someting like this to your expressin (in this example the y offset would be 100):

(your expression here) + [0,100]

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

If the pre-expression value isn’t animated, you can use a little trick where you use the opacity expression to stuff the pre-expression value into negative times, like this:

if (time >= 0) value*100 else value

Then you pick up that value like this:

transform.opacity.valueAtTime(-1)

If the pre-expression value is animated, you can still do it with something like this:

if (time >= 0) value*100 else valueAtTime(-time)

and pick up the value like this:

transform.opacity.valueAtTime(-time)

But you have to do a little extra work to pick up the pre-expression value at time = 0, if you need it. Anyway, that should give you the idea.

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

The effect expects the light source coordinates to be relative to its own layer’s upper-left corner.

This expression should do the translation for you:

L = thisComp.layer(“Null 1”);
fromWorld(L.toWorld(L.anchorPoint))

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

It works for me if you hold Alt and use the numeric keypad for the numbers.

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

I think first you’d have to make the image tileable in the vertical direction and then you could use AE’s Offset effect to make it loop.

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

If you have keyframed the eyelid movement, you can turn on time remapping for the layer (you may have to precompose first) and then you can drive the time remapping with Sound Keys so that your animation is synced to the audio.

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

Yes. Converting the x axis gives you everything you need to calculate the rotation.

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

If you want to calculate the world rotation of a 2D auto oriented layer (“Layer 1”), you can do it this way:

L = this_comp.layer(“Layer 1”);
V = L.toWorldVec([1,0]);
radiansToDegrees(Math.atan2(V[1],V[0]));

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

sampleImage() makes it possible, but it would be like many other expression simulations in that on each frame you’d have to evaluate what had happened on all previous frames to know if a collision had occured at some time in the past and then calculate where the layers should be at the current frame based on the collision. I think it could quickly get out of hand if you had a lot of layers. It would be fun to try it though.

Dan