[Elad Menashe]

You cannot change both the position and the anchor point using expressions since you need the anchor point value to be affected by the position value before its expression value was evaluated, you can do the following to achieve your goal:
1) Create a null layer and make it the parent of your layer.
2) apply this code to the null’s position:
value - thisComp.layer("White Solid 1").transform.position
3) apply this code to your layer’s anchor point:
value - transform.position
4) Hide the null layer.

Regards
Elad

[Elad Menashe]

What about layer styles?
Since AE CS3 each layer can have layer styles, look for it from the layer menu.

Regards
Elad

[Elad Menashe]

There are several ways to pull this through.
Programs like Mocha or Boujou can help you specify the plane or the way the camera moved in real life (respectively).
To get the wrinkled text effect (as if the text was on the cloth) you should use displacement mapping, I’d start with setting the cloth as the displacement map for the text and see how it goes and adjust it from there.
The displacement map effect is found in Effect > Distort > Displacement Map.

Andrew Kramer had a tutorial on how to work with Boujou

There are alternatives to Boujou, to name a few: PFTrack, Realviz’ Match Mover Pro (though they don’t sell it anymore) and there’s another freebie one which I don’t recall its name.

Hope that helps
Elad

[Elad Menashe]

Look in this tutorial.
Half of the tutorial is for Imagineer Systems’ Mocha.
After going to AE he starts turning the eye black.

Hope it helps
Elad

[Elad Menashe]

Please add more data.
What is the size of the file?
Have you tried removing the “continuous rasterize” check box and see if that works? (same place as “collapse transformation”)
Have you tried rescaling the original vector image, or just save it again?

[Elad Menashe]

I’d go with the Bass & Treble effect, High-Low Pass effect or the Parametric EQ effect.
All found in Effects > Audio Effects.

[Elad Menashe]

add two “Slider Control” effect to the layer you apply “Card Wipe” to.
And apply the script above to the position.

make sure you name your slider control the same name as in the script or vice versa

You can also look on the Separate XYZ for reference

x = effect("Slider Control 01")("Slider");
y = effect("Slider Control 02")("Slider");
[x, y]

[Elad Menashe]

to have motion blur you can use the CC Force Motion Blur effect.
I’m not sure how to add DOF

[Elad Menashe]

Dan,
Looking at your code it seems you’re looking for minimum/maximum values only from the current time and backwards until the beginning of the comp, instead of going from layer’s in-point to out-point.

Am I missing anything?
Thanks
Elad

[Elad Menashe]

There is a way to get maximum and minimum values.
I’d go with traversing all layer’s frames and getting the minimum and maximum (for now we’ll deal with one dimension) and then know your relative value according to those min & max.

A different approach (and better one) will be to:
1) Add the following effect to the layer to be colored:
* 2 “Color Control” effects (name ColorA & ColorB)
* “Slider Control” effect
* “Fill” effect
2) Create a null layer (called “Null 1”) and add to it 2 “Point Control” effects (called PointA & PointB)
3) Paste the following expressions to the Fill effect and position of the layer.

Fill.Color:
c1 = effect("ColorA")("Color");
c2 = effect("ColorB")("Color");
sliderValue = clamp(effect("Slider Control")("Slider"), 0, 100); // making sure slider value is between 0 to 100
linear(sliderValue, 0, 100, c1, c2)

-----------------------------------------
Position:
l = thisComp.layer("Null 1");
p1 = l.toComp(l.effect("PointA")("Point"));
p2 = l.toComp(l.effect("PointB")("Point"));
sliderValue = clamp(effect("Slider Control")("Slider"), 0, 100); // making sure slider value is between 0 to 100
linear(sliderValue, 0, 100, p1, p2)

In case this isn’t clear send me your email and I’ll email you the project

Regards
Elad