[Graham Quince]

Can you get an image of just that frame? Using Composition > Save Frame As

It’s probably a graphics card glitch, but might take you forever to get to the bottom of it and if the single image comes out fine, you could drop it on top of that frame in the timeline.

[Graham Quince]

I can’t see your graphic at the moment, but I’ve done similar to what you described before.

Isolate your icons, on layers of their own with their anchors in the centre of each. Parent them to the null.

Hit R on the keyboard to expose their rotation property and do the same for your null.

Use the pick ship to link the icon’s rotation to the null’s. Then edit the expression and add -1

The icons rotation will be the exact opposite direction to the graphic, so it will appear that they stay upright.

[Graham Quince]

Frustratingly, your second image posting attempt didn’t succeed either, but I think I know the answer.

The transform properties (position, opacity etc…) look like they cannot have an edit range applied to them, but if you use a slider linked to the position property for X and one for Y, you will see the Edit Range options.

[Graham Quince]

I’ve posted my answer here – where I first saw Jose’s question. Hope that helps anyone else who finds the question via search:

https://creativecow.net/forums/thread/tutorial-makin-an-eclipse/

Tutorial: Makin’ An Eclipse

[Graham Quince]

Hi José

Unfortunately the image you posted doesn’t appear – so I can’t easily see the issue. But if I understand your question, you can only see the Rotation property of the layer, not the X,Y,Z rotation values.

That suggests to me that the layer is a 2D layer. You need to make it 3D in order to see the three rotation values.

[Graham Quince]

I’m getting closer, but it’s still the time that’s the issue, I need to replace the inPoint value with the timestamp from when y is clamped.

xPosStart = 1200;
yPosStart = 540;
parentPos = thisComp.layer("Null 1").transform.position;
gravity = 10;
distance = length(transform.position,thisComp.layer("Null 1").transform.position);
rope_length = 400;
if (distance >= rope_length){ // once the null is at the max length of the rope, kick in Dan Ebberts's overshoot expression
	t = time - xStartTime;
	freq = 3;
	decay = 5;
	startVal = [xPosStart,y];
	endVal = [parentPos[0],parentPos[1]-rope_length/2];
	dur = 0.1;
    if (t < dur){
        linear(t,0,dur,startVal,endVal);
    } else {
        amp = (endVal - startVal)/dur;
        w = freq*Math.PI*2;
        endVal + amp*(Math.sin((t-dur)*w)/Math.exp(decay*(t-dur))/w);
    }
} else { // Fall straight down, until at end of rope
	xStartTime = time;
	yPos = gravity*100*time*time;
	y = clamp(yPos,yPosStart,yPosStart+rope_length);
	[xPosStart,y];
}

It’s not giving me an error, but it’s stopping

[Graham Quince]

I’m getting closer, I realised I can use @danebberts bounce expression to describe the x movement swinging in:

g = 10; // gravitational constant
y = g*time*time/2;
xPos = value[0];
yPos = clamp(y,0,250);
if (yPos == 250) {
    t = time - inPoint;
    startVal = xPos;
    endVal = 0;
    dur = 0.1;
    xPos = linear(t,0,dur,startVal,endVal);
}
[xPos,yPos];

I just have to figure out how to set t to not be based on the inPoint, but the moment when Y crosses the 250 threshold.

[Graham Quince]

Yup – just followed your steps and the same thing happened. Ouch – AE crashed hard.

[Graham Quince]

I animated the Sun and Moon in relative sizes and positions in AE space to demonstrate an eclipse and kinda wish I hadn’t bothered – it worked, but the numbers were so vast.

I’d suggest using a slider control as a multiplier on your positions and scales. That way you can drag layers around still, but by keyframing the multiplier, you might just find it easier.

Only other tip I can think of is to have your smallest layer be the parent of the other layers (or a null at the small scale). When you come to make changes, it’s a lot easier to edit big numbers than it is to edit decimals.

Good luck.

[Graham Quince]

Try this:

Set your text colour to Red. And the text layer’s Transfer Mode to Difference.

You might get away with this if the greens are not too strong. Failing that, i think you’ve be looking at duplicating your background and flipping it, then using the text layer as an Alpha Matte.