Worked perfectly! Thank you Dan! You’re right, this is a tricky one. Wrapping my mind around it is harder than the expression itself. Thanks again.

I have 4 text layers stacked overtop each other, all on the same x value for simplicity. There is a central text layer that (for now) sits in the exact center of the comp, and the other layers take their position value from its yPosition + sourceRect + margin etc while I figure this expression setup out. Some text layers may end up with sourceText…

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Ah, good point about the point control, my idea was morphing as I typed the original message

😅 Works flawlessly though. As always, great work Dan and thank you for the assist!

I need to grab layer(“A”+n).content(“Rectangle Path 1”).size[0] from each shape layer starting from A1, A2, etc and set a Point Control to the maximum number, regardless of how many shapes with rectangles I add. Is this possible? I imagine there’s a for loop alongside a try catch to see if the layer has a Rectangle Path 1, but I’m having trouble…

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Wow Dan. This is great, and works exactly as I need. Probably going to replace it with the handy expoOut function for a smoother animation. Either way, thank you Dan!

Consider the following position orbit expression:

My question, how can I have this layer start from comp center and smoothly move into it’s position in the orbit over the course of n frames, starting at the layer’s inPoint?

I think my biggest hang-up is that each layer that this expression is applied to has a slightly different position value at n…

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The text is jumping with descenders because (I imagine) you are using sourceRectAtTime to control scale and/or anchor point.

To remedy this, if you’re working with multiple text layers (1 per line), you’ll want to add this expression to your sourceText property of each layer:

str = text.sourceText;
time < 0 ? str + "|" : str 

Then, for the…

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Hey Dan,

Fixed the issue, wanted to fill you in.

• Regular comp, tons of expressions: 14:51 render time
• posterizeTime(0) in front of each expression: 9:16 render time
• posterizeTime(0) + “Freeze Frame” on comps with one single active frame: 1:36 render time

Thank you, as always, for the help 🙂

I started with posterizeTime(1), and noticed slight performance enhancement.. Is this the traditional method of handling these types of issues? I was considering pulling everything heavy with expressions into a pre-comp and set them as active for 1 frame, then using “Freeze Frame” on those pre-comps. posterizeTime(0) would be much simpler than an…

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Hey guys,

I have projects with 100’s of lines of code for sourceText, anchor point, position, scale, etc. Almost all of these are static, and are required simply for layout purposes. However, render times have increased exponentially, far beyond our maximum allowable.

After some digging, I’m considering setting up Parent layers for each element,…

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Oh my god it works perfectly for my use. This is amazing. Thank you so much for this hack! Very creative!!

Interesting idea, Dan. I will try this out over the evening and get back to you tomorrow with results. Thank you for your input. Always appreciated!

Consider the following expression:

var str = text.sourceText;

var lines = str.split(‘n’);

var longestLineLength = 0;

for (var i = 0; i < lines.length; i++) {

if (lines[i].length > longestLineLength) {

longestLineLength = lines[i].length;

}

}

var maxW = longestLineLength <= 20 ? 20 : 40;

str = wordWrap(str, maxW);

var lineCount =…

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Hi Dan,

Thank you for your response, and I apologize for my late reply. This works perfectly for my use case. So happy to have received your input on this matter. You’re a legend! 😃

Regards, Shane

Hey guys, I’m working on a project that will take input from various users for the same project. Some of these users may use text that will extend beyond the visual bounds of the text field, and I’d like to stop it from moving/scaling beyond that field, and also add “…” to the end to keep it visually appealing. Automatic scaling with… Read more