[Matthew Tully]

i think this can be accomplished without any expression. here is a dirty way to accomplish what you want.

create a 3d null and place it “inside” your building. make sure the null’s anchor point is exactly centered if you want the rotation to be even.

place the camera where you want to start. parent the camera to the 3d null. now you can animate the Y rotation of the null, this governs the speed of the camera’s rotation.

animate the camera however you want, just disregard the rotation part. I think in your case just use the XY camera tool to “ascend” the building.

here is a quick video i made. it took less than 3 minutes to make, but it sure is sloppy. is this what you are looking for?

circle.mov (185KB)

[Matthew Tully]

could seedRandom pull just one value from one random frame each time the comp was rendered.

i’m surprised there is no real way to generate a random variables. This seems like a really primitive function.

so if it must be a script, can anyone point me in the proper direction there? please don’t let this one drift away.

[Matthew Tully]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for having a look, maybe I can explain the scenario in a hypothetical example:

I have a project with one comp and in the one comp I have one solid.

I am trying to have the starting position (frame 1) of this solid randomly selected from one of 4 possible selections (array or if/then?) out of the frame.

Then I would like to have the solid move to the center of the comp over time, either controlled in the expression or with keyframes.

Each time I render this comp I would like it to randomly choose a starting position from one of the 4 choices. This part is important.

So that’s my idea in a nutshell. So far I am only able to pass off a random number of either 1,2,3, or 4, and then assign an “if / then” to the position of the solid. However this is not a true random variable. Each time I render it, it always picks the same starting random seed.

[Matthew Tully]

thanks dan,

i had tried something similar, but it was passing weird values to my y-axis. thanks for the help, you are a life-savor.

[Matthew Tully]

Thanks Dan! Does the trick as usual.

[Matthew Tully]

Thanks for the response Tim. Looks like I am cleared for take off. I love this site! I would love to contribute at some point to some of the After Effects tutorials (when I have some free time). Do I need to host the video or can I just submit them to you guys? Keep up to good work.

[Matthew Tully]

This is just what i was looking for. I was trying to describe the virtual keyframes created, the data points generated by expressions. Thanks Mr. Ebberts.

[Matthew Tully]

Is there a way to more precisely control the amount of decay? For instance, I want to trigger the animation and then as soon as the leader layer hits its mark the following layer stops within 30 frames.

[Matthew Tully]

You could try turning on continuous rasterization option for the AI file. This might help. Are you able to see the strobing on your machine or client monitor? Or were you only able to see it at the finishing studio?

[Matthew Tully]

I agree, great time last night. Does anyone know where to find the expressions used for FK and IK motion? You know the ones that were used on the Shark Suit guy’s demo.