[Steve Bentley]

I forgot to mention that the code goes on to the mirror reflection center attribute.

[Steve Bentley]

So as the x pos of the object increases you want the reflection center to decrease by the same amount but from the right hand side right?
The idea is that you take the value of the objects x position and subtract it from the right most pixel value of the frame (or any position you like really).

The code below assumes the layer you are moving is also the layer that has the mirror effect on it. If not you can change the second line to: MP=thisComp.layer(“yourLayerNameHere”).transform.position. or you can type MP= then pick whip the position value of the layer you want to choose as your object.

Position holds two values, x and y (or three, with a z, when it’s 3D) and you access them with a [0] or [1] after the variable holding the position information (the first value, x is held in the zero position and NOT the 1 position, so if you had a third value for a 3D object it would be in the [2] slot.
When you want to access just one of the values of a multivalue attribute like Position or alter just one of them you put them between square brackets, and separate each one by commas: [xvalue, yvalue, zvalue]; the z value is only used for 3D. Or in your particular case [[MP[0], MP[1]]. We made MP = to the whole position value of your object in the second line.
You can also do a little math inside the square brackets too and that can save you a line of code, so inside the first value holder we’re subtracting the xposition from the far right pixel value of the composition.

You can also do the whole thing in one line if you like too, getting the width of the comp to act as your far right position value.
[width-transform.position[0],transform.position[1]]

Doing it any of these ways also lets you go past the middle and the math will still work.

cmpSize=3840;
MP=transform.position;
[cmpSize-MP[0],MP[1]];

[Steve Bentley]

With the OS reinstall did you get the drivers for your video card and reinstall those too? Did you get the latest from the chip maker (Nvidia or ATI and not the maker of the actual video card)

That looks to me like your video card is not capable of Open GL and its a software version thats running. it also looks like you can’t uncheck that top box. What vid card do you have?

[Steve Bentley]

My suggestion earlier about purging your cache was from experience – the first time I threw a sphere with a texture into Element all I got was black – after a half hour of stamping QWERTY into my forehead I purged all the caches and then all was well.

What version of AE and what version of Element? The new Element may not be compatible back to AE6 which a lot of users are still on.

[Steve Bentley]

So i’m confusing expressions with expresso (C4D). It must be time for bed – I was thinking that AE always returned a radian value.
Thanks Dan

[Steve Bentley]

The issue of course is where to “store” that array.
I don’t think you can write out a text or json object, if you could that could be your “RAM”

[Steve Bentley]

Or effects/transitions/gradientWipe (in the end this may be the same as Blaise’s gradient mapped fade)
You can also use gradientwipe along a path that has a gradient mapped to it – think: travelling comet with no position keyframes needed.

[Steve Bentley]

Gotcha: I don’t use Vray but since it’s a GI renderer try turning off the seen by rays or seen by GI. (as well as the seen by camera). This may kill the reflection though.
With other render engines those features are usually part of the engine’s interface and the ones set in C4d are often ignored. Does Vray have such a thing? – perhaps with Object ID tags so the engine knows which objects to include in the “off” command.

[Steve Bentley]

You’d have made a good detective Jim. I missed the default color not being there completely (with textures option turned off).
James , have you tried turning off the open GL in the your preferences? Your graphics card might have a migraine. You might need to restart C4d to have it take effect. (I have one card that needs that and many that don’t)

[Steve Bentley]

Have you seen this?
https://rainboxprod.coop/en/tools/duik/
If you are working with puppet tools this free script/interface makes it a dream.
It’s doing exactly what Dan is suggesting but looking after all the under the hood expressions for you. You could code it yourself with expressions but this fine gentleman has done it for you.
And you get a really good IK that just makes puppeting easy – and gives you nulls to stand in for your puppet points that you CAN link with just the parent tool.
As for learning curve, by the time you watch the three tutorials you will be up and running.

It feels like cheating!