[James Ronan]

Okay I had a little crack at it this morning, maybe theres a better way, but here’s where I’m at. This should allow you to animate the cursor along the x axis and it will display the current value on a text layer.

The rA variable is just an example array of stored values. 0,24,37,2,10,80,60,55,80,23
You can update that to read the data from a spreadsheet row or JSON file or w/e you choose.

On your cursor layer set two keyframes, the start position and end position and apply this expression to the source text property of your text layer. No easing though!


var rA = [0,24,37,2,10,80,60,55,80,23]; // result Array
var cursor = thisComp.layer("cursor"); // layer you choose to animate the x axis position
var xPos = cursor.position[0];
var startPos = cursor.position.key(1).value[0];
var endPos = cursor.position.key(2).value[0];
var aryN = linear(xPos,startPos,endPos,0,rA.length);
var aryNPrev = Math.floor(aryN);
var aryNNext = Math.ceil(aryN);
try{
txt = linear(aryN,aryNPrev,aryNNext,rA[aryNPrev],rA[aryNNext]);
txt.toFixed(2);
} catch (err){
rA[rA.length-1].toFixed(2)
}


[James Ronan]

How would I modify the expression to target the X slider position of a null that the cursors X position is parented too
Update the c variable to look at what ever you’re using to move the curser. This could be either the null or a slider.

e.g. if you’ve linked it to a slider:
c = thisComp.layer(“LAYER NAME”).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”).value;

It’s possible if you update the linear expression with the y axis. But that will involve moving your curser that way too.

It gets more complicated if you want to only move your curser along the x axis and not the y.

[James Ronan]

Maybe something like this, on the opacity layer of the White Solid.


try{
comp("Precomp 001").layer("Black Solid");
0
}catch(err){
100
}


[James Ronan]

I think your looking for the linear function. Here’s an example for the weeks

Apply this expression to the sourceText property of a text layer:


weekStart = 0;
weekEnd = 20;

posStart = 0;
posEnd = thisComp.width;

c = thisComp.layer("curser").transform.position[0];
week = linear(c,posStart,posEnd,weekStart,weekEnd);

Math.round(week);


This will update the week as the curser moves along the x-axis from one side of the comp to the other.

Hope that helps!

[James Ronan]

Check out a script called WayFinder on aescripts, it allows you to attach and guide artwork along shapes layers.

https://aescripts.com/wayfinder/

[James Ronan]

This was my approach when doing something similar… Maybe it will help you get started. It doesn’t have custom controls for velocity though.

Add as an expression on the position property of a layer. It will move the layer 500px along the x axis between 1 – 2 seconds.


function easeInOutCubic(t) { return t<.5 ? 4*t*t*t : (t-1)*(2*t-2)*(2*t-2)+1 };

startVal = 0;
endVal = 500;
startDur = 1;
endDur = 2;

t = linear(time,startDur,endDur,0,1);
e = easeInOutCubic(t);
x = linear(e,0,1,startVal,endVal);

[x, value[1]];


I took the easeInOutCubic function from this website which has a variety of easing functions:
https://gist.github.com/gre/1650294

Hope that helps

[James Ronan]

If your circle layer has it’s anchor point centered you could try this expression on it’s position property:


L = thisComp.layer("bar");
r = L.sourceRectAtTime(time,false)
L.toWorld([r.width/2,r.top]);


[James Ronan]

Ah, hadn’t seen your later messages.
No worries, glad you got it working!

[James Ronan]

Hey Scott.

Here’s a rough example of a window with 3 buttons, that adds or replaces the fill effect across all selected layers:

Hope that helps!

var win = new Window('dialog', "Test");

var btnAry = [];
var colAry =
[
[1, 0, 0],
[0, 1, 0],
[0, 0, 1]
];

var clickHandlerFill = function(i) {

return function() {

app.beginUndoGroup("AddEffect");
var curItem = app.project.activeItem;
var selectedLayers = curItem.selectedLayers;
var curRem, curLayer;

for (var j = 0; j < selectedLayers.length; j++) {

try {
curRem = selectedLayers[j].effect.property("Fill").remove();
curLayer = selectedLayers[j].Effects.addProperty("ADBE Fill")("Color").setValue(colAry[i]);
}
catch (err) {
curLayer = selectedLayers[j].Effects.addProperty("ADBE Fill")("Color").setValue(colAry[i]);
}
}

app.endUndoGroup();

};
}

// Create buttons and assign clickHandler
for (var i = 0; i < 3; i++) {

btnAry[i] = win.add('button', undefined, i);
btnAry[i].onClick = clickHandlerFill(i);

}

win.show();

[James Ronan]

I’m not 100% following your code, but the “curItem.selectedLayers[0]” parts will mean it will only affect the first layer selected.

You could try adding a for loop, going through your selected layers to affect all of them:

var selectedLayers = curItem.selectedLayers;
var curRem, curLayer;

for (var j = 0; j < selectedLayers.length; j++) {

try {
curRem = selectedLayers[j].effect.property("Fill").remove();
curLayer = selectedLayers[j].Effects.addProperty("ADBE Fill")("Color").setValue(pcolor[i]);
}
catch (err) {
curLayer = selectedLayers[j].Effects.addProperty("ADBE Fill")("Color").setValue(pcolor[i]);
}
}

Hope that helps!