[Paul Ducco]

In wanting to extend my knowledge, if you’re open to it I’d love to ask you a couple of questions regarding the set up. Things like, is the Point Controller used as an easier way ‘toComp’ the values?
Yell out if you’re open to it, and whether we do so here, or an an IM platform.

Thanks again Filip. So great.

[Paul Ducco]

That is mind blowing. You are mind blowing. Thanks Filip.

I’ll have a proper look, but may borrow this structure and implement it with the null being an invisible shape layer. It is a rather complex build already with the base cursor variations being all contained as shape layer.

Thanks again

[Paul Ducco]

Yup! You nailed the usage…BUT…it’d need to be animated (with keyframes) ‘to’ the beginning point of text, and then ‘from’ then end point of the text. It would be amazing if it could cover multiple lines…but a single line would be extremely useful.

Thanks for your input and idea bouncing 🙂
hope the above makes sense.

[Paul Ducco]

Well that’s news to me too!
Yeah cool…that might work, except the text often changes at the last minute, so might cause more headaches than I was trying to solve.

Thanks again Dan, as always, your knowledge and input is above and beyond

[Paul Ducco]

This is a new phase…really only just started digging…though it sounds pretty straightforward (hopefully)

Thanks Dan

[Paul Ducco]

Thanks for chiming in Andre. Did you resolve your issue?

In our instance, it was easy enough to change how we accessed and applied the precomps, which meant, realistically (with the new approach) we can just apply the shadow to the placed precomp. Not going to work in every situation, but saved us a headache.

[Paul Ducco]

Development: managed to get this kinda working a bit better, using indexes and rounding to ensure full numbers…however it isn’t perfect for all character width. That said, it’s progress.

I’m now wondering if there’s a way to set a key for the position of the precomp. Currently, because it is being repositioned by an expression, the values aren’t ‘true’ values…and in an ideal world this expression (of following the position of the typing text) would work in combination with the ability to keyframe the position of the precomp as well.

Hope this makes sense. Am I asking too much (again :))

[Paul Ducco]

Haha. That’s concerning (for me!)
I was attempting to say if the value (scale) of the layer was at the appropriate reduced amount (calculated with a value set by a slider), then animate.

And as expected, your approach works beautifully and makes much more sense.

Thankyou!

Here’s where I got to if you’re interested in working out the madness…:)

clickPoint= thisLayer.marker.nearestKey(time).time;
keyLabel = thisLayer.marker.nearestKey(time).comment;
clickDur = 0.075;
t = time;
defaultscale = value[0];
clickScale = (effect("Click Scale (%)")("Slider")/100)
clickBase = defaultscale*clickScale;
if (time < clickPoint) {
scaler = ease(t, clickPoint-clickDur, clickPoint, defaultscale, clickBase);
}
if (time >=  clickPoint) {
	scaler = linear(t, clickPoint, clickPoint+clickDur, clickBase, defaultscale);
}
[scaler,scaler]

[Paul Ducco]

Failing Dan. Help appreciated.

This is resulting in the scale down occuring…then nothing, despite the arguments appearing to return as they would need to, to get scaler in the ‘else’ statement happening

clickPoint= thisLayer.marker.nearestKey(time).time;
keyLabel = thisLayer.marker.nearestKey(time).comment;
clickDur = 0.15;
t = time;
defaultscale = valueAtTime(0)[0].toFixed();
clickScale = (effect("Click Scale (%)")("Slider")/100).toFixed(1)
clickBase = defaultscale*clickScale;

if (valueAtTime(time)!=clickBase) {
scaler = easeIn(t, clickPoint-clickDur, clickPoint, defaultscale, clickBase);
} else {
scaler = easeOut(t, clickPoint, clickPoint+clickDur, clickBase, defaultscale);
}
[scaler,scaler]

[Paul Ducco]

Thanks so much (as always) Dan.

I must be on the right track, but not doing the right thing in my code…as that’s the approach I’d got to.
Will have another tinker and post the code back here if I fail again.