[Paul Roper]

….oh and sometimes, when copying scripts from t’internet, it might help to first paste them into a text editor (TextEdit, Notepad, etc) and turn off all the formatting to get rid of any web/html/formatting weirdness, then copy from this and paste into after effects.

[Paul Roper]

Dan Ebberts (you’ll see a LOT of him in this expressions forum!) has a great site:

https://www.motionscript.com/

As for the brackets:

() is normally used like you would in ordinary maths, eg. (2*3)+10 is not the same as 2*(3+10)….or as part of After Effects’ syntax of naming properties.

[] is normally used for arrays, eg. the position property has two or three variables: [x,y,z] so to access just the x, you’d use: transform.position[0]
to access the y, use
transform.position[1]

{} are for Javascript-type things, such as if…then statements. In the example I provided, the {} isolate the different things, eg:

if (john_age > fred_age)
{
everything within
these curly brackets
happens if
john is older than fred
}
else
{
everything in here
happens
no matter
how long
it
rambles
on
for until you
get to the close
curly bracket
}

Hope that helps…I’m just kinda rambling while my Mac has a prolonged spinny-ball-of-death moment. Ah – it’s back to life!

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

….although this will invert all your keyframes, unless you keyframe the invert control, ie. 1 frame before your second keyframe, set “Reverse Animation” checkbox to OFF, then on your second rotate keyframe, set it to ON.

Obviously there will be only 1 frame from inverted to positive; the movement will not be smooth. But that’s what you get with checkboxes – they’re either on or off.

[Paul Roper]

Put this in your rotation expression:

if(effect("Reverse animation")("Checkbox")==1)
{
-value
}
else
{
value
}

[Paul Roper]

No ideas, anyone? Dan?

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

If they are stills, they do not have a framerate; if they are showing up as having a framerate of 30fps, then they are not stills.

If they are video clips, whose content is static, then the framerate really doesn’t matter, especially if you’re only using one frame from each. To make sure nothing weird happens when you put each one in the composition, you could right-click on the layer (after you’ve put it in the composition) and choose ‘Time > Freeze Frame’.

If you want to sequence the layers, with one frame per picture, drag all your stills into the composition, then at the first frame, select all the layers and press alt-] to set the out-point to the first frame. Then, with the layers still selected, go to Animation > Keyframe Assistant > Sequence Layers… and make sure the overlap options are off.

There you go – a sequence full of all your stills.

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

I had a nose through that file – it’s got all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff in, like:

Getting Jiggy
Funky Chicken
Hopscotch

Fascinating!!!??

Effect matchname="ADBE Getting Jiggy" name="$$$/AE/Preset/GettingJiggy=Getting Jiggy">
Slider name="$$$/AE/Preset/OhBoy1=Oh Boy 1" default="5" valid_min="-50" valid_max="50"/>
Slider name="$$$/AE/Preset/OhBoy2=Oh Boy 2" default="5" valid_min="-50" valid_max="50" slider_min="2" slider_max="8"/>
Slider name="$$$/AE/Preset/OhBoyPercent=Oh Boy Percent" DISPLAY_PERCENT="true" default="50" valid_min="0" valid_max="100"/>
Slider name="$$$/AE/Preset/OhBoyPixel=Oh Boy Pixel" DISPLAY_PIXEL="true" default=".5" valid_min="0" valid_max="1"/>
Layer name="$$$/AE/Preset/FollowLayer=Follow Layer"/>
Color name="$$$/AE/Preset/Hopscotch=Hopscotch" default_red="128" default_green="64" default_blue="192"/>
Point name="$$$/AE/Preset/CenterPoint=Center Point"/>
Point name="$$$/AE/Preset/LeftEdgePoint=Left Edge Point" default_x="0.0" default_y="0.5"/>
Group name="$$$/AE/Preset/Jig=Jig">
Checkbox name="$$$/AE/Preset/EnableJig=Enable Jig" default="true"/>
Angle name="$$$/AE/Preset/JigAngle=Jig Angle" default="10"/>
Group name="$$$/AE/Preset/FunkyChicken=Funky Chicken">
Checkbox name="$$$/AE/Preset/EnableFunkyChicken=Enable Funky Chicken" default="false" CANNOT_TIME_VARY="false"/>
Angle name="$$$/AE/Preset/FunkyChickenAngle=Funky Chicken Angle" default="20"/>

[Paul Roper]

Bah…never mind! I’ll stick to my lots-of-one-slider-sliders for now!

Thanks Dan!

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

…That’s assuming you’re using CS5 or later (or maybe it was introduced in CS5.5? I’m not sure). Those additional depth of field adjustments didn’t exist in earlier versions of After Effects.

[Paul Roper]

Go to the camera in your timeline and open up the camera settings.