[Dan Ebberts]

Something like this maybe?

minV = 100; // min velocity (pixels per second)
maxV = 500;
seedRandom(index,true);
V = random(minV,maxV)
value + [0,0,time*V]

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

Couldn’t you just make the last keyframe a hold keyframe, and another one 1 second later, and then loop the whole thing with loopOut(“cycle”) ?

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

I think you can do this pretty easily without expressions. Just arrange your 3D layers in a ring, add a 3D null at the center of the ring, and make it the parent of the other layers. Add a camera, enable the Camera’s depth of field, set the aperature pretty high (several hundred, maybe) and set the focus distance so the layers close to the camera are in focus. Select all your graphic layers and turn on Auto Orient (Layer > Transform > Auto-Orient > Orient Towards Camera). Now all you need to do is keyframe the Y Rotation of the null. I think that’s it.

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

Probably something like this:

period = .25;
maxStartTime = 1.0;

seedRandom(index,true);
t = time – random(maxStartTime);
if (t > 0){
if (Math.floor(t/period)%2) 0 else 100
}else{
100
}

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

I would think a time remapping expression like this would do the trick:

sliderVal = effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
Math.round(sliderVal)*thisComp.frameDuration

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

The alternative would be a script.

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

“%” is JavaScript’s modulus operator which just gives you the remainder of a division. Examples:

The result of 7%2 is 1 (2 goes into 7 evenly 3 times with a remainder of 1)

The result of 11.73 % 3 is 2.73 (3 goes into 11.73 evenly three times with a remainder of 2.73)

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

Have you tried just making the layer the parent of the camera?

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

I think you unfortunately stumbled onto a special case (the expression applied to an expression selector). Convert Expression to Keyframes does not seem to work for it the way it does for other expressions.

Dan

[Dan Ebberts]

There’s no construct for saving old values, but you can retrieve old values using valueAtTime(). For example:

thisComp.layer(“wheel”).transform.zRotation.valueAtTime(time – 2.0); // value from 2 seconds ago

Dan