[Jon Rowe]

Thanks Michael, that would all work (and I’ve tried this approach) except that it has a few limitations. I don’t believe there is a rotation over life setting which would quite possibly solve much of my issues. To give context: I’m creating a 2D video to map onto a 3D hemispherical LED display. The 2D video needs to be square shaped to map onto it correctly. The mapping of the 2D video onto the 3D hemispherical LED is such that the circular area that fits inside the square video will be the only part displayed on the LED. The video is to show different coins (about 10 x different still images of stylistic coins – these are the sprites) falling from the top of the hemispherical display, and slowly filling it (building up the sides until it’s full). How this translates, is that in the 2D video, the coins need to fly out from the center (rotating randomly as they fall while still facing the camera), then ‘bounce’ as they hit the top of the pile (noting that the pile is continualy growing – ie. getting closer to the center of the animation), then come to rest. The resting positions of each emitted coin grows increasingly closer to the center where they are being emitted from, until the comp is taken up by resting coins (from the 10 x different coin image – sprite – options). So in effect, I have 3 x different states that my sprite particles (coins) need to take on during the animation: 1. Rotating (as they fall / move out from the center emitter); 2. a bounce animation (as they land – start frame needs to match final rotation of falling coin); and 3. the final rested position (still image that matches the last frame of the bounce animation). The sprites need to stack behind eachother as they pile up too – not in front. Because when transposed onto the hemisphere, coins that are in front of lower down coins should slip off the pile in reality. I’ve been able to create almost what I need by having an emitter with direction set to ‘disc’. Emitter slowly moves away from the camera (to get the layering correct) with ever decreasing particle life (to have them finish closer and closer to the center). A secondary particle emitted at death of parent creates the rested coin. With the rotation of falling coins (parent system) set to follow particle motion 100%. Problem is I can’t match the rotations of the 3 x stages mentioned above. There is a set rotation angle that each coin needs to finish and rest at (because there’s individual drop shadows on each coin which always need to be offset outwards from the center of the comp.

[Jon Rowe]

Thanks John, but unfortunately these solutions don’t address all of my requirements.

[Jon Rowe]

OK, thanks again Dan.

[Jon Rowe]

Thanks very much Dan.

I’ve only ever worked with VBA before so appreciate your patience.

Couple of related follow up questions if that’s ok:

Firstly, could I write the script in a new text document and then save it with the .jsx file extension?

Secondly, There’s around 30 x dropdown menus who’s menu items are based on the names of the layers in a particular comp. When I make changes to this comp, (eg. add another layer), I need to update the menu items in all the dropdown lists to reflect the changes. So would I need to re-execute the script every time I updated this comp? Is there perhaps an event that is fired (such as ‘onCompChange’) which I could take advantage of to automatically run the script again in the background?