[Shirak Agresta]

So not to be dense, but do I put it all the way at the top or right above the if/else statement?

I’m slowly getting the gist of expressions basics, so thanks for all the help!

Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue sky.

[Shirak Agresta]

Argh, I thought I was out of the woods. I hadn’t noticed before, but my shadow diffusion was up to 100 pixels. It seems 84 pixels is the highest it can be before the shadow disappears from the masking of the layer.

Any suggestions for that? 100 pixel diffusion is how a part of the whole look of the piece.

Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue sky.

[Shirak Agresta]

Thanks, that helped. I figured out what’s causing it. It’s the light’s shadow diffusion percentage. I have it turned up pretty high (like 60 pixels or so) and the size of the mask was clipping it. I need a much bigger mask, which works.

Thanks for all the help!

Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue sky.

[Shirak Agresta]

I went into the fast preview preferences and switched it to adaptive resolution, unchecked “enable OpenGL”, and switched it to adaptive resolution on the fast preview button on the main window.

Shadow problem still exists, didn’t change anything. I even restarted AE, just to be sure.

Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue sky.

[Shirak Agresta]

Sweet. Again, thanks so much, this is invaluable and solves a lot of problems!

Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue sky.

[Shirak Agresta]

Thanks so much! One again, sir, you prove to be an invaluable resource.

Now, just to make sure I understand this:
1) the sample size (in your example 10 by 10) is just that; a sample size of 10 pixels by 10 pixels.

2) the sample position is half the size of the size of the target layer, correct? Would this mean that the image I am referencing for this needs to be in the center of the comp?

3)[Dan Ebberts] “hsl = rgbToHsl(rgb)” :<-- This line means that "hsl" (hue/saturation/levels) represents a conversion from rgb to hsl color space ("rgb" equaling whatever is being sampled)? 4)That some value of "hsl" is being multiplied by 100? What does the "[2]" represent? 5)That this whole shebang is the expression for the opacity of "layer 2" or whichever layer I want the effect to take place on, right (I know, seems obvious, but I want to be sure I get this). Again, thanks so much for your quick reply, you've helped me out a number of times before and I appreciate it. Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue sky.

[Shirak Agresta]

Great, thanks! I’m assuming, then, that this won’t affect the original project that you’re collecting files from? As long as you don’t save it or something like that?

Thanks again.

Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue sky.

[Shirak Agresta]

Great, thanks so much for your help! That explains a lot.

Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue sky.

[Shirak Agresta]

Thanks. The timing issue may just be an illusion created by the shifting of position. So how could I fix this if I need the anchor point of one of the layers to be shifted? Do I change the anchor point of the new precomp to that of the other anchor point position?

Thanks again!

Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue sky.

[Shirak Agresta]

Never mind, figured it out. Thank you Dan Ebberts (once again) for your awesome website on expressions!

Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn’t conquer the blue sky.