[Katryna Sleptzoff]

Tom Van Damme, this is it!! Thank you so much. Wow, learn new things all the time despite using illustrator for years and years. I had the best luck when changing the blending options to a specified number of steps and putting a large number in to make it very smooth. Amazing, love it, thanks again so much!

[Katryna Sleptzoff]

I’m not sure what you mean by spline, I can’t find anything related to illustrator + spline when I look it up. I was just calling it a path, not sure if there is a difference.

I can easily edit the path to be any shape not just a swirl, it essentially acts like a regular stoke that I made with the pen tool.

I was thinking that too with the multiple circles that are filled in cleverly but now I don’t think so. Inside the layers panel, when I open up the object theres only a few circles, looks like the match up to the circles outlined in the picture. They are filled with what looks like a gradient and I’m actually able to change that. Whats interesting is that when I do change the gradient it only affects the path next to the circle, so if I want to change the whole thing I have to change all the circles.

It’s like somehow it was extruded along this path and then grouped together, which would explain how they got certain parts of the path to overlap itself, but it’s also NOT just grouped because the twisted path itself acts like one object rather than a grouped one — Idk if I’m explaining this right but it obviously HAS to be some trick in illustrator bc to my knowledge this wasnt even possible.

I’m really thinking this has to be some kind of effect or fancy path thing that I have no idea about. I’m almost positive it’s likely a way easier process than it seems.

[Katryna Sleptzoff]

I believe I vaguely remember reading a more technical explanation on this very forum about that at some point. I remember there being a good reason, I think because of a technical limitation of some sort. But I can’t fully remember.

Regardless, you can still do what you want to though, which is called paste in place.
Select & cmd+c what youre trying to copy
then to paste in front hit cmd+f. to paste behind hit cmd+b. It will paste in the exact same place as what you copied.

Hope this helps!

[Katryna Sleptzoff]

Wow, thank you so much for replying. I am always trying to learn more, but trying to wrap my mind around the basics of expression writing has always been challenging (even when im looking at things that break it down! It’s very similar to math formulas in my mind, which I always had a hard time with as well).

Somehow you managed to break it down in a way that I now understand it. I didn’t even know what an array was even though I have sat there reading about the basics of arrays and values etc multiple times. It never clicked until now….so I really do mean it when I say I appreciate your response. You taught me a valuable lesson!

(apologies if the next paragraph doesn’t use the right terminology or doesn’t quite make sense…I tried haha)
I think the reason why I was confused is because I thought the 0 was the start of the array basically— so for some reason I thought value was a uh…command? (similar to if i were to write clamp), and the 0 was the x scale all by itself, since it was followed by the y scale number. Now I see that value isn’t a command at all(which it can’t be if it’s in brackets aka an array right?), but THATS what is actually the x scale itself(not the 0), and the 0 is what tells ae that “value” is the width and not something else. And value is written instead of a number because I want to be able to still change it, whereas y is the number itself because I want it locked. Honestly I know this is probably a terrible explanation but I am writing it out anyways in case my understanding is wrong, and also because it helps drive the lesson home for me.

I do have one more follow up question though. I typed in [20,50] into the expression box for scale– and it changed the width to 20, and the height to 50….why is it that we have to define value as value[0] (the zero being the width aka x value, right? My terminology may be off) but we don’t have to define the 20 (so that it would look like [20[0], 50])? You don’t have to answer– but I’m curious now if maybe I’m just not understanding it right.

(sorry for the wall of text….but also THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR RESPONSE!! I know this is like…….sooooo basic but it really is helping so THANK YOU!!)

[Katryna Sleptzoff]

Perfect!! And wow, even more simple than I thought! are the brackets around the 0 the reason why the width is still editable? (I want to learn, so might as well ask)

Thank you so much though, I really do appreciate it.

[Katryna Sleptzoff]

What GoPro are you using? I’m guessing the Hero6– as thats the one that uses the HEVC codec which is what I’m assuming you are having issues with.

[Katryna Sleptzoff]

If you have 800+ layers and you need to make editing the script easier, I would look into using the essentials graphics panel for the source text instead. All you need to do is drag the source text property into the panel and you can now change the text (and control+v anything) without even having to open the layer at all.

Hope this helps

[Katryna Sleptzoff]

to clarify- right click on the adress you want to change in the layers panel

[Katryna Sleptzoff]

I’m not sure if I’m understanding your problem correctly, but have you tried right clicking on the dragged out address & selecting “edit content”? this will open another file, just put in the text you want , close it & hit save when it prompts you.

It also sounds like you can just copy & paste the layer styles as well- might be easier way to do what you want to do.

[Katryna Sleptzoff]

This is all super helpful and interesting to learn, thank you everyone!

I’m still a bit flabbergasted that the fix was as easy as what Dave said (switching layer order), but now Im curious about the set matte effect too. I love learning about this stuff. It’s just weird because you’d think after a couple years of working in this program I would know these things by now, but no, it still ends up managing to surprise me– although in this case I just feel a bit dense haha. It’s because for some reason I assumed the bottom (alpha) layer HAD to be the “mask” layer, while the top layer HAD to be what you wanted to be masked. It never occurred to me to even try the opposite way or that it would even work. Truly a facepalm moment.

The set matte effect seems interesting simply for the fact that it has different settings to use for matte, like hue, saturation, red channel, etc. I always thought the regular track matte effects were a bit limited in this regard (although like I said, I apparently didn’t know how it works so I’m going to have to re-evaluate that opinion haha), so this is really useful to have up my sleeve just in case.

Thanks again! You are all wonderful and I super appreciate the time you all take to help me and others out on this forum– even simple q’s like this one.