[Fadi Baqi]

Hey Dan, Hey Mitch,

Here’s what I ended up with.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oizf3ewyoszdeoq/existing%2001%20folder.zip

Strangely, the expression works until I try to sampleImage from a global position. In the file are two sets of windmills, the one on the left, reading a global position, gives the same value as the one on the right, sampleImaging from the layer’s position, but the first set doesn’t produce a rotation while the second (the one reading from the wrong position) does.

Any ideas?

Is there a far simpler way to do this that I am unaware of? I am setting up like this because I want to experiment with activating the windmills according to a variety of different patterns. That’s why I thought this would be the way to go.

[Fadi Baqi]

ouch. I was hoping that wasn’t going to be the answer. Thanks for your help anyway.

[Fadi Baqi]

Hey Dave,

I’m not sure how this is an answer to my question. I have background elements, foreground elements, and layers in between that I want to create greyscale track mattes for. To do this, I have to precompose all the foreground elements (which means ruining expression connections, arduously duplicating and selecting which layers should be precomped…etc…) then applying a black fill effect on the foreground comp, then selecting the layer I want the track matte for, and applying a white fill to it and rendering this whole composition. Then I have to redo all this for another layer.

It seems like a needlessly long process and I’m wondering if there are any workarounds.

[Fadi Baqi]

Tried the author of the True Comp Duplicator script but still nothing. Does anyone here have a different solution?

[Fadi Baqi]

No worries. Found a script that works better over here:

num = thisComp.layer("Controls").effect("number")("Slider");
amtOfDec = thisComp.layer("Controls").effect("amt_of_decimals")("Slider");
commas = thisComp.layer("Controls").effect("use_commas")("Checkbox");
//--
num = num + 0;
amtOfDec = amtOfDec + 0;
commas = commas == 1;
//--
if(! commas){
//commas not requested
num.toFixed( amtOfDec );
}else{
//commas requested

//This function takes a positive whole number as a string
//and adds commas to it
function addCommas( str ){
finalResult = "";
for( i = str.length - 1; i >= 0; i-- ){
finalResult = str.charAt( i ) + finalResult;
if( (str.length - i) % 3 == 0 && i != 0 )
finalResult = "," + finalResult;
}
return finalResult;
}
//--
intPart = Math.floor( Math.abs( num ) );
decPart = Math.abs(num) - intPart;
wasNeg = num < 0;
result = "";
if( wasNeg )
result = "-" + result;
intPartString = intPart + "";
decPartString = decPart.toFixed( amtOfDec ) + "";
decPartString = decPartString.substring( 1 );
result = result + addCommas( intPartString ) + decPartString;
result
}

[Fadi Baqi]

My SSD is my boot drive. Is it wise to have to my cache on my boot and application drive?

[Fadi Baqi]

This problem seems like the result of some sort of change to the layer after the puppet tool has autotraced the shape. The differences result in the aforementioned “glitches”. The only way to overcome this is to remove the puppet effect and start over again or retrace it.

[Fadi Baqi]

Haha, thanks Kevin. I did end up painting out the joint frame by frame (my AE tracker couldn’t get a lock on all the noise- would be interested to know how you managed to do it). But I am still stuck with when it crosses the palm. Tried cloning the color but it is still too bright and show ups. What’s more annoying is that there isn’t a clear shot of the fingers which I can steal a plate from and loop (as I did with the background).

Gonna retry tracking it and see if blurring it on the palm will work…

[Fadi Baqi]

That is a nifty solution, indeed. Thank you guys for the help. I’m surprised effects switches aren’t animatable as I imagine wanting to turn off effects to speed up work is a common problem.

[Fadi Baqi]

Thank you, Walter. I am aware of the layer switches in the timeline, but I am looking for something that I can link specific effects to, without turning off others.

So if a layer has 7 effects, I want to link 4 of them to a switch on a null and then do that to the rest of the 100 layers.

Once that is set up, I can switch off the render-intensive effects to work and then switch them back on when I output.