[Nate Mulliken]

Also not sure how you tried to enter active camera in the expression. for example typed out like “activeCamera”

Perhaps look up how to create global variables in After Effects using a controller layer. You may be able to use the expression in some form of controller layer that looks for activeCamera.

-Nate

[Nate Mulliken]

Nick,
It has been a long time since I have looked into this. I like the idea of using the active camera.
Not sure how Dan’s expression would respond to that.

Is there perhaps a way to use your muli-cam set up as a reference then manually mimic the cuts with new cameras and/or subcomps once you have a lock on your shots?

Then you’d be able to enter the expression on each one?

I realize this is obvious and very clunky not to mention a nightmare to edit if your cuts were to change.

[Nate Mulliken]

Thanks Jason, I did try that earlier but although it’s great for keeping layers and expressions in order it does not suit my needs. What I did was call an external .txt file with this inside:

var comp1 = [“text1”, “text2”];
var comp2 = [“text3”, “text4”];
var comp3 = [“text5”, “text6”];

and so on.

on each text layer there is this expression:

//For text1 this is on the source

try {
$.evalFile(comp(“Globals”).layer
(“fileToLoad”).text.sourceText);
eval(thisComp.name)[0];
}
catch(err){err.toString()};

//For text2 this is on the source

try {
$.evalFile(comp(“Globals”).layer
(“fileToLoad”).text.sourceText);
eval(thisComp.name)[1];
}
catch(err){err.toString()};

In the Globals comp there is the instructions to call up the array.

Windows Path:ile://c:\\\\Expressions\\
Data File: arrayList.txt

This way every time I duplicated the first comp i set up with the two text layers and the first comp, it would duplicate and auto populate the next comp with the new set of text.
Getting the excel spreadsheet to cooperate was a whole other issue which is why I was looking for my initial solve. BUt I reformatted the info fairly easily through the help of friends to get it to work within the syntax of the program.

[Nate Mulliken]

I may change my approach to use:

var comp1 = [“text1”, “text2”];
var comp2 = [“text3”, “text4”];
var comp3 = [“text5”, “text6”];

this way it’s doing what I need when I duplicate the comps, but I’ll have to figure out how to re-configure my excel data.

Still interested in original solve if possible.

[Nate Mulliken]

Thanks Dan, as always very appreciated. I plan to work on this using your links and working on getting what I need so I can share my findings.

[Nate Mulliken]

More than just an ease. As if the parented object had momentum or was only loosely tied to the leading obeject so it appears to float with the leader and follow it, but not “locked” to it.

[Nate Mulliken]

Perhaps this may help. not sur eif this is what your looking to do.

I made a comp with a solid. Put on the ramp effect on the solid.
Precomped the solid with the effect, moving everything into the precomp.

Then I made a null next to that precomp. In the null I set a position keyframe so the null moved from top to bottom.

If you drag out the tab of the precomp so you have two timelines open at once you can scroll open the positon of the null and the effect controls for the ramp effect.

Alt click on the start ramp position and pickwhip to the null position.

It’ll write an expression that makes the ramp move with the position of the null.

[Nate Mulliken]

Awesome! Dan you are the best.
For those that may have made it this far and need that extra helping hand, it may be good to mention to make sure you zero out all orientation and rotation parameters first. Then lay this expression into the orientation parameter making sure that the name of your comp camera matches the camera name in pasted expression.

Obvious stuff for some but my first question was “where do I put it?”
once I got it in it works great.

Hopefully this is all correct information.