[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

This is fairly complete expression. You need 4 sliders on a separate layer named “controls”: “range x”, “range y”, “protect x” and “protect y”.

The expression starts the positions around the center, so range x and range y are in both positive and negative directions around the center. Protected area is the size of the area, in both directions around the center. In essence, the actual areas are twice the size of the ranges.

Expression takes into account the size of the layers themselves so that they don’t overlap the protected area.

Basically, if the resulting position is inside the protected area, a new set of position values are tested. The “escape” variable is a foolproof in case the protected area becomes larger than the range, the expressions will stop trying after 100 attempts so as to avoid an infinite loop.

seedRandom(index,true);
my_size = thisLayer.sourceRectAtTime(time,true);
my_width = my_size.width;
my_height = my_size.height;
range_x = thisComp.layer("controls").effect("range x")("Slider");
range_y = thisComp.layer("controls").effect("range y")("Slider");
protect_x = thisComp.layer("controls").effect("protect x")("Slider")+my_width/2;
protect_y = thisComp.layer("controls").effect("protect y")("Slider")+my_height/2;
center = [thisComp.width/2,thisComp.height/2];
searching = true;
escape = 0;
while (searching){
x = random(-range_x,range_x);
y = random(-range_y,range_y);
if((Math.abs(x)100){break}
}else{
searching = false}
}
center+[x,y]

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Video CoPilot realistic raindrop tutorial comes to mind.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

This should do it.
Note that I extended the end plate to 30 seconds and used a Math.min to end the time remapping at 1 frame before 10 seconds, so as to keep the end plate from there on out, which I assumed is the intention.
I suspect the end plate comp needs to be as long as the maximum length of the main comp to allow adequate room for remapping.
13261_promodummycompremapped.aep.zip

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Perhaps along the lines of

if (checkbox==0) value else {your existing code here}

?

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Alright, so the description of the effect would be something like “the text is attached to the circle at a fixed distance and smoothly following the motion of the circle, while tending towards the center of the comp.”

What complicates the matter slightly is that the text starts out not being towards the middle in the beginning, so this may need to be handled by using a null for the “center” that the text tends towards, as you can then animate the center (null) from the left edge to the comp center in the beginning.

I would start with Dan’s auto-orient expression here: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1178515

Calculating the orientation from the circle to the “center” null would give you the rotation angle for the text in relation to the circle. So you could have a null in the center of the circle and the text at a given distance attached to the null and rotate the null based on the auto-orientation expression. And then rotate the text itself by the same amount but in negative direction to keep it horizontal.

Smoothing the result will require a loop to average the values over a given time span.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Would that be a square area?

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Is your cursor still in the expression box at the point after “a=” when you pick-whip (it should be)?
Also, make sure you’re using the expression pick whip. There are nowadays three different pick whips (parenting, property and expression) in the AE interface.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Can you upload a dummy comp without footage set up the way you have it? Saves the time it would take recreating the comp to answer your question.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Cool. Will be most interested in seeing the outcome from that method as well.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

I know I’m not answering your exact question, but timewarping the footage sounds like a very cumbersome method for stabilizing a pan. I stabilize pans by stabilizing the shot with tracking (with multiple parented nulls if it goes for more than one screen) and then adding the smooth camera pan manually back in (with manually placed keyframes) to the stabilized shot.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer