[Mike Clasby]

In your example it would say, “2.0000000”.

[Mike Clasby]

thisComp.layer(“My Layer”).inPoint

Change the “My Layer” to whatever your layer name is.

As a check, when this expression is put on Source Text of a text layer you get the Time of My Layer’s inPoint.

Well, it returns the time in 1.234567, seconds to 6 decimal points.

[Mike Clasby]

1) For basic animation in AE, look at this:

https://www.videocopilot.net/basic/index.html

Click on, 03. Animation, and you’ll learn about keyframes.

2) Quickie Lesson

To change the position of you leaf, set a “P” reveals Position, set a keyframe (click the Position Stopwatch) at the beginning, then go down the time line and drag the leaf to a new spot (position) and it will add another keyframe.
OK, go halfway back to the start and move the leaf again and you see an arc in the motion path and the Bezier handles will appear to control the curves of the path. You should have three keyframes.

If you want them to east at start and end,, select the first and last keyframe and hit F9.

Or

On a New Solid (Ctrl Y) you can create a mask with the Pen Toll (or past a path in from Photoshop/Illustrator). Then M reveals the Mask Shape, select and Copy, then Paste into a Position of your leaf layer and that mask will become a Path for the leaf. Drag the end keyframes to lengthen of shorten the time it takes to follow the path.

[Mike Clasby]

Echo is what you want. Tweak away.

[Mike Clasby]

Have you tried here:

https://www.archive.org/details/prelinger

Looks like it’s a little wonky at the moment, most of the time the site works fine, I’d use the Search on that page, or click the “Browse by Subject / Keywords” link.

I’m pretty sure what you want is hidden amongst those 2000 movies, all Public Domain.

[Mike Clasby]

Here’s the flip-side of Marker Trigger’s expression, or Marker Kills Expression:

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

if (n == 0){

wiggle (5,50)//your expression her

}else{
value;
}

I tested it on a wiggle expression, so drop your expression on that line, it can be multiline, but drop it there. This was a Dan expression, flipped.

Also, here’s how to stop an expression at a certain time;

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/227/8966

[Mike Clasby]

I don’t quite know what you’re doing but if you want to rotate the path, then you could always make a duplicate of the layer with the mask, make it 3D, rotate that layer, then when it is aligned in AE 3D-land like you like, Copy that Mask Shape and Paste, then the new position keyframes will have that 3D path that matches the masks 3D Orientation.

There’s probably a better way, but I’m blanking at the moment.

[Mike Clasby]

There is no tutorial to walk you through what you want to do. Each roto job is really unique and no two use the same techniques.

This is the best source I know off, recommended here before, that’s how I found out about it. It was done with Commotion, but the same principals work fine in AE. He uses several techniques, I especially like the multiple masks, one for each moving unit, like a leg, an arm, the torso. here you go, click the links on these pages. You might want to Right-Click and download, they’re worth repeated viewing.

You can move the mask as a whole by double clicking any vertex, then you get a little Transform Box like in Photoshop, resize, Shift for proportional, rotate, then hit Enter.

https://effectscorner.blogspot.com/2006/01/rotoscoping-part-1.html

https://effectscorner.blogspot.com/2006/01/rotoscoping-part-2.html

[Mike Clasby]

I see what you mean, if that first Vegas parameter, Stroke, is set to Contours, there is no path to copy/paste, so you are a bit “up the creek”.

Can you track the leading edge of the Swish? Maybe make a duplicate copy and tweak Vegas to make that leading edge of the swish more track-able. Anyway if you get a track you’d have keyframes to copy/paste.

Otherwise you’re left with a simple manual animation of the object you want to parent to the leading edge of the Swish. Sometimes it’s easier and faster just to keyframe the position of that object. If you get one rotation you can always loop that if there are many revolutions of the Swish.

[Mike Clasby]

Here are two scripts that should do what you want:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/916507