[Mike Clasby]

To do what you want I think each letter needs to be an individual 3D layer.

[Mike Clasby]

How about Scale and Liquify/Twirl…

Or, Polar Coor, rect to Polar and scale, twirl?

[Mike Clasby]

Effect>Transition>Radial Wipe keyframed on a reduced Opacity Solid?

[Mike Clasby]

This expession on Positon should do what you want:

x = 150;
[x,position[1]]

Set x to whatever you want and it will stay at that x.

[Mike Clasby]

Go slumming, mingle with the unwashed. Find a person with a PC and PhotoShop/IrfanView(freebie)… Internet Cafe? Library? Univ/Art School Lab?

Or, as a last resort, I’m unwashed… a PC person… an exchange of emails would take 10 minutes.

[Mike Clasby]

Here is a freebie PhotoShop plugin that compensates for that pinching at the poles you want to avoid:

Spherical Mapping CorrectorThis filter produces texture map correction for spherical texture mapping.

https://www.richardrosenman.com/software/downloads/

[Mike Clasby]

That’s a great script a real timesaver, I just didn’t know it could be cranky with the save txt options. Bravo for finding the elusive formula.

[Mike Clasby]

Get someone on a PC, any PC, to paste in your text file, into Notepad, then save a .txt from there and see if it works. Should be OK. Maybe go to an internet Cafe or the Library.

[Mike Clasby]

Try saving you txt file from Notepad. That’s what I use.

[Mike Clasby]

There are two scripts to do what you want, but both require that expression to be converted to mask shape keyframes in the process. I think the rotoScript in 1) is what you need, assuming there will be more than two vertices in your mask that will be stroked. The second method has a limitation of one vertice or all vertices, but if the stroked mask is on the layer named Body and you assign an expression to vertice 2 for the Hand it should work.

1) Here is a script to apply a mask to data, it was written for roto work, but you can use it to apply expressions to mask points.

Overview:
1-The script assigns Tacking Points to mask vertices.
2-Put an expression on the tack point (Attach Point really) that corresponds to the body part you want to tie it to.
3-Convert the expression to keyframes, sorry but it needs keyframes to work so all animation needs to be done first.
4-Apply the Tracker to the mask.
Done.

Details:

https://del.icio.us/escruz/Rotoscope

Download, then move the jsx file RotAE.jsx to AE’s Script Folder, then open AE.

Assuming three body parts, named Body, Arm and Hand, that are already animated.
Draw your three point mask (just do two points if that’s it). I drew the mask on a Solid named Stroke.
File>Run Script> RotAE.jsx
Select the mask, then in the script palette, click “Apply Tracker”
And it will create Tracker one with three track points.

Twirl down the Tracker 1 > Track Point To the Attach Point, say the one corresponding to Body, add this expression (Copy the expression, Alt-Click the Attach Point Stopwatch, Paste, click outside the box):

thisComp.layer(“Body”).position

You can also write this expression automatically by Alt-clicking the Attach Point Stopwatch then pickwhipping (looks like an asterisk, middle of three little boxes) to the layer named Body’s Position stopwatch.

Then you’ll need to select the track point 2, attach point 2, and add this expression:

thisComp.layer(“Arm”).position

And for track point 3/attach point 3:

thisComp.layer(“Hand”).position

Then select the three expression, all three Attach Points next to their equal signs(meaning they have an expression applied) and from the Animation menu above select, Animation>Keyframe Assistant>Convert Expression to Keyframes.

Then select Tracker 1 (not the track points) AND select the mask, then in the rot script palette, click “Apply Mask”.

That should do it.

It will also work for just two mask points, or as many as you want.

2) There is a script for applying expressions to mask vertices, but it’s for all vertices of for a single vertice; here is an earlier post:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/915452

Another limitation to this is that it looks like the Body layer needs to be the same size as the comp so the calculations can be done, meaning you’d need to mask out a comp sized layer or precomp the Body onto a comp sized layer, getting a bit complicated now… yikes.

If you’re only talking two points you could make it work by having the mask on say the Body layer then applying an expression to vertice 2:

thisComp.layer(“Hand”).position

But anymore than two vertices and it wouldn’t work as the script can only access one vertice or all vertices.

To apply to a specific vertice, follow the links instructions until you click Calculate (to give you the number of mask points, vertices), then click Selection>Custom (since we want individual points), click the “display num” radio button (so you can see which vertice is which) and in the box above type “2” so the expression will apply to the 2nd vertice. In the left column, click the “Position expression” radio button, and type into the box below the expression to tie that vertice to the layer named “Hand”, something like this for the expression:

thisComp.layer(“Hand”).position

That’s assuming you hand layer is named “Hand”.

So the mask will be on the Body layer, hence vertice one will follow that, and vertice two will be tied to the hand.