[Michael Cosner]

WOW – what a fantastic solution. Thank you so much, Walter!

And thank you for providing the sample project file – it gives me a lot of valuable information on the expression setup. It’s also interesting to see how you tied the scale of the 3D solid to the camera zoom.

If I could give you a gold star, I would!

Thank you again!

[Michael Cosner]

Thank you Walter for the sample project and the visuals. This is the second solution to suggest LOOKAT and I think it could work if it were possible for the LOOKAT orientation to be the inverse of what you are demonstrating.

Using your images as an example, if you see your pointer moving to the corners, notice how the corner of the 3D layer moves away from the pointer (it get’s darker)? I need the opposite to happen. I need the edges of the 3D layer (closest to the pointer) to move toward it. Does that make sense? Basically, the underlying 3D layer is bring the edges of the interface layer closer to the pointer so the user doesn’t have to go completely to the edge of the screen to select something.

I’m trying to figure out how to invert the LOOKAT orientation value for X and Y but not having much luck.

[Michael Cosner]

Thank you for the suggestion, Blaise. I hadn’t considered the LOOKAT expression as an option — I figured keeping the null layer as 2D would simplify calculations. I looked into the thread you posted and it’s an interesting approach, however, there are two things that prevent it from being the solution I need:

A) LOOKAT affects the underlying 3D layer in the opposite orientation of what I need. For example, when I move the null to the top right, the entire 3D layer turns to look in the direction of the null, shifting the top right corner of the 3D layer away from my pointer instead of closer. If there’s a method to invert the rotation calculation, that would be great.

B) I like the idea of pushing the 3D layer back into Z space to affect the rotation, however, scaling the layer back up to the original/desired size doesn’t guarantee a 1:1 resolution match of the HUD elements. Having some way to clamp the intensity value of the rotation would still be ideal.

[Michael Cosner]

Hey Dan,
Yep – I just want to display the values of keyframed properties (position, scale, etc) for every frame over the course of an animation. I tend to do a lot of squash and stretch, so having the scale value changes visible and embedded into one corner of the screen will be extremely useful.

Does that help?

[Michael Cosner]

Perfect, Dan. Works like a champ. Thanks for the mental nudge.

Cheers,
Michael