[Kevin Camp]

you can get pretty close if you create your text as ‘paragraph text’ (using the text cursor, click and drag a rectangle to make the text box), type a bullet character and enough text to make the line wrap.

then fiddle with the paragraph settings to adjust the indenting to move new lines to the left, so that as the text wraps, the wrapping line lines up with the first word of the bulleted line.

after that everything you type in that, as long as you use a bullet at the front of each new line, it should work out pretty well.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

iris wipe can generate a simple triangle — equilateral, with radius control for size.

if something that simple works for you, adding invert, set to effect alpha would reverse the triangular hole to be a triangle.

for an irregular triangle, i’ve used your 3-beam-effect method, but used expressions to link the endpoints to point controls on the same layer, thus behaving a bit more like an effect. i also used then the paint bucket effect to fill the triangles (with an expression to keep the fill point between the point controls).

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

you can’t have an expression overwrite keyframes with new values, but you could use the timings of those keyframes to drive the interpolation between two new color values…

i’d create a null and add a color expression control effect to the null. rename the color control to ‘Color 1’ and then duplicate it (the duplicate will be named ‘Color 2’). then set those two color chips to be two different colors.

then you should be able to add an expression like this to the color properties of the flares:

c1 = thisComp.layer("Null 1").effect("Color 1")("Color");
c2 = thisComp.layer("Null 1").effect("Color 2")("Color");

n = 0;
if (numKeys > 0){
n = nearestKey(time).index;
if (key(n).time > time) n--;
}

if (n%2==0){
linear(time,key(Math.min(n,numKeys)).time,key(Math.min(n+1,numKeys)).time,c1,c2);
}else{
linear(time,key(Math.min(n,numKeys)).time,key(Math.min(n+1,numKeys)).time,c2,c1);
}

and the color property should take on the new colors in the color controls. if you needed the color controls in a different comp, create the controls in that comp and then direct the expression to use the color controls ins that comp.

if you were using ease keyframes, change ‘linear’ in the expression to ‘ease’.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

try this…

copy the info from the excel sheet (just the text you want on the screen, not the timecode) and then paste it into a text layer in after effects.

then select the source text property for that text layer and choose animation>add expression and paste this expression into the expression property:

line = text.sourceText.split('\r');
line[Math.floor(time)]

the expression should tick each line every second.

would something like that work?

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

sorry eric, i can’t open the file (cs5 here)…

it does appear to work in a very simple set up i made using the pan behind tool to animate the anchor point and position of a layer and then parent another layer to it. it seems to be erratic if i try to re-zero the child layer while parented, but if i un-parent, zero it, and then re-parent it seems to be fine… however it falls apart in other areas as i work with it a bit.

do you need parenting? or would it be fine to simply link the position property of on layer to the position property of another?

something like this:

L = thisComp.layer(“Gray Solid”); // name of your layer in quotes
value + L.position

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

if the layer is an image you should be able to simply drag the outpoint (the right edge of the layer in the timeline) to lengthen the duration.

if the image layer is in a nested comp, you will need to either adjust the nested comps duration and the layers within it, or, if nothing animates within the nested comp, you could do a freeze frame (layer>time>freeze) and then drag the outpoint to the new duration… or time stretch the nested comp.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

try this expression:

if (hasParent == true) position+parent.position else value;

it should make the position value of the child relative to the position of the parent (if parented).

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

with the expression, you shouldn’t need to link the layer to a null, you can apply the expression to the layer’s position property directly, and the layer will rotate around the ‘centre’ value in the expression.

if you wanted each layer to have a different start position you could add an offset value to the expression, and alter that for each layer.

something like this should work:
radius=300;
rate=55;
offset=60;
angle=time*rate+offset;
x=radius*Math.cos(degreesToRadians(angle));
y=radius*Math.sin(degreesToRadians(angle));
z=0;
centre=[960,540,0];
add(centre,[x,y,z])
the offset value would be in degrees, just modify that as needed.

if you wanted to link the ‘centre’ value to a null, you could change that part of the expression to something like this:
centre=thisComp.layer('Null 1').position
where ‘Null 1’ woudl be the name of your null layer.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

you can do it with ae’s bundled effects…

create a solid, and use the pen tool to create a path in the shape of the dotted line. then select the mask path property and copy it (select the actual property called mask path, by twirling down the mask properties).

add the circle effect and select its ‘center’ property (again twirl down the properties to select it) and paste the path into the center property. you should have a circle that now follows the path.

key frame the radius property so it tapers as needed.

add the echo effect after the circle effect and adjust the echo time and number of echoes to create a string of circles that move along the path.

if you didn’t want the string of circles to move along the path, but rather be static but write-on, you can try this expression in the both circle’s center and radius properties:
offset = Math.abs(effect("Echo")("Echo Time (seconds)"));
t = Math.floor(time/offset)*offset;
valueAtTime(t)

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

layer style>stroke won’t obey 3d camera space, so you may be able to create your stroke with layer styles.

since you can’t have a layer style stroke on a layer with nothing opaque (ie, fill and stroke set to zero), you may need to have a small shape layer stroke on (in the shape properties), and set the layer style stroke position to ‘center’ to cover it up.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW