Just spitballing here …

Not sure how efficient it is, but maybe you could put four nulls in your precomp to that are programmed to use position themselves at the four furthest points of your elements in the precomp and average out the Z position. Then, when you continuously rasterize, you’ll have the bounds already located and would be able to…

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Richard,

I’m not sure I fully understand your use case, but it could be possible to insert the expression yourself and have it linked to an Expression Layer Control Effect. That way the user would only be required to select the appropriate layer.

Trent

Al,

I had this problem recently. I’m not sure if there is a simple solution for ignoring the descenders. My solution was:

1) Duplicate the text layer, have it read the sourceText of my main layer, and make it All Caps.

2) Parent the Main Text Layer to the All Caps layer.

3) Do all of the sourceRectAtTime() stuff to the All Caps layer, and then turn…

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Haha! It’s always one little thing, right? May After Effects treat you exceedingly well today!

Awesome! I think it just came down to using two equal signs to do a comparison instead of resetting the variable.

Try this out and see if it works for you:

//condition

Switch == 1 ? Double : Single

Would you mind putting your expression in the thread here?

Thanks!

It’s great that you’re excited to learn Expressions! Absolutely continue the Javascript course. There are a log of javascript methodologies for the web that you will not use, but you’ll find a place for way more of that knowledge than you think. I spend a lot of time on w3schools.com to when I need to solutions to particularly elusive javascript…

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Nick,

I’m not sure if it helps you, but that name offset slider should only be whole numbers. That could help you.

Also, just connect the Essential Graphics Panel to a text field that is hooked up through expressions.

Trent

Nick,

I tried the Text Animator situation, and it didn’t work like I had expected. SOOOOO I have an aep here for you that uses the same idea but in the sourceText of the two separate layers instead.

Adjust and improve as needed!

Trent

Nick! You are certainly clever. Don’t ever question that part!

Two things to try:

1) Leave an instruction for the editor to add an underbar to the name for the split like “Dr. Nick_Von Kennedy”.

name.split(“_”)

2) You could add a text animator for making first/last transparent and give the editor the ability to offset the start/end index of the text…

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Andrei,

Maybe this will get you started. I copied/pasted your text and actually inserted carriage returns at the end of each line. The carriage return—or “r”—is important to how this expression works. (Maybe someone else knows if AE can read automatic line breaks, but I don’t think it does.) This expression just returns the number of characters per…

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Hi!

I’m not sure I understand “fully” what you’re trying to get, but I remember seeing somewhere a solution for rounded corners where circles were used on each of the corners for the rounding instead of the Corner Roundness. I think they were attached to the corners with Nulls, but maybe you could do the same thing with sourceRectAtTime().

Philip,

This is another common concern. Sadly, at the present time, it’s not possible to mix text styles through the “style” expression. The best thing to do is have two separate text layers with two different styles you then place using expressions. There should be another thread here for causing two text layers to be placed in relationship to…

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Philip!

You are not alone in thinking this is a tricky one. I still have to scour the docs to make sure I’m getting the order and formulae right just about every time I use these new text style expressions.

I think I’ve got something here that will work for you (please let me know if it needs to be different).

TXT1 =…

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I stand fully by the solution Filip has provided, and I will offer a secondary solution. This project has each layer referencing the position and size of the previous layer through expressions. I don’t consider it better or worse. It is just another way of accomplishing your goal. That’s what I enjoy so much about After Effects! There are—many t…

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If these are all set up as precomps or all the text in one layer, this solution will work.

POSITION EXPRESSION

L = thisComp;

x = L.width * .5;

y = L.height * .5;

[x, y]

ANCHOR POINT EXPRESSION

L = thisLayer.sourceRectAtTime(time);

a = L.left;

b = L.top;

x = L.width * .5;

y = L.height * .5;

[a + x, b + y]

If you are using multiple layers to stack the lines and…

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I am on board with Aris here, Dan. This would be great for one of your motionscript.com explanations with notes on the expression!

Such a simple and elegant solution!!!

For Shape Layers and Text, the effects are applied based on 100% of the width and the height of the comp. So anything you try to do will have to be based on that. The big problem with trying to use a Linear Wipe isn’t the percent of the wipe, it’s the angle because it always defaults to rotating around the “center” of the layer. With the effects…

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Here is a bit of a hack for you!

Andrei,

Sorry I couldn’t help. I hope you get it figured out!

Trent

Andrei, I’m very sorry I misread your question. Try this AEP:

https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/1a62b7b5-1438-4809-7ae1-727706bd0ee6

Hi, Andrei!

• Add an Opacity Animator and set it to 0.

• Change the Range Selector>Advance>Based On to “Words”

• Change the Range Selector>Advance>Shape to “Ramp Up”

• Set a keyframe for Offset to -100. Move forward and set a keyframe on Offset to 100.

This will cause your words to fade in from left to right on each successive line.

You can also check t…

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In the past there have been some text clipping automation apps on Mac—maybe Windows as well. There were some things that happened with cost and subscriptions and that kind of stuff that made those apps frustrating for me.

At some point, I started building expressions in After Effects and then saving them out as Animation Presets. It takes a l…

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Can you put r in your CSV file where you need carriage returns and have that just flow through to AE?

Nick,

I can’t recreate it either. Here are a couple of suggestions:

1) Make sure your Scale for each layer is set to 100%. Otherwise, you might need to do some math in your expression to adjust for that.

2) Since you have some parenting going on, there might be a slight issue with the sourceRectAtTime() calculation. You could always set the position…

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Hi, everyone!

I love this kind of stuff! For me, it usually comes down to the linear() or ease() expressions. These are range mapper expressions. The setup looks generally like this:

linear([input value], [range start value], [range end value], [result value 1], [result value 2])

EXAMPLE:

1) Using Time as the input value

2) An opacity change happens…

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Awesome! If it doesn’t work exactly like you need it to, post back here for more thoughts.

Hi, Detlef!

I think you can do this with an expression on the time remapping of the second layer.

TIME-REMAP EXPRESSION:

theStart = thisComp.layer(“VA layer”).outPoint;

theEnd = theStart + key(2).time;

t = linear(time, theStart, theEnd, key(1).value, key(2).value – .01)

OPACITY EXPRESSION:

if (time >= thisComp.layer(“VA layer”).outPoint) {100} else {0}

(I…

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Nick,

I have been straying away from using masks more and more lately in favor of using Shape Layers and Track Mattes or the Set Matte effect. Shape Layers are much more animatable and expressionable.

It’s possible to set the Anchor Point of the Shape Layer to always move to the far left so you can use sourceRectAtTime() to have the Shape read the…

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I used DuIK and this particular tutorial, and it made the rigging and animation SO EASY!!!

Let me know if you have any questions!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QveG_ou8IfE

REGEX! Right on! This is a great look at how regex can be used in expressions!

Trent

I think the only way to achieve exactly what you’re looking for is with scripting inside AE.

If you’re trying to do this with a MoGrt, you can either set it with ALL the options but in different areas and maybe checkboxes. OR you could create separate MoGrts for each of your scenarios: Broadcast Master, Archive Master, Textless Split, etc

Maybe make sure the AE Preferences are the same across the two. There is a Javascript setting that can cause expressions to be read differently.

https://help.pixflow.net/portal/en/kb/articles/after-effect-change-expression-engin

You bet! Have fun with those expressions!

There is something wrong with the formatting that is happening with the blog post. It’s a bit of a hassle, but try typing it instead of copy/paste. I had trouble with the quotes on the first line and then some character on the startPos line. Not sure what that’s about. 😐

Kieran,

You can also do a thing where you read the time of keyframes into the ease() expression start and end range. That allows you to change the length of the move by adjusting the position and distance between those keyframes.

Kieran! This is awesome! I love dynamic setups like this that can change based on other elements in the comp.

You will probably want to use linear() or ease() to accomplish this. It would look something like this:

L = thisComp.layer(“Shape Layer 1”); //Pickwhip the layer you are referencing

w = L.sourceRectAtTime().width * .5;

startPos =…

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I’m not sure if this is exactly what you’re looking for, but you can put a Text layer at the bottom of your layer stack and put this expression in the sourceText field:

list = [];

times = [];

for (i=1; i<=thisComp.numLayers – 1; i++) {

list.push(“r” + thisComp.layer(i).name + ” — ” + timeToTimecode(thisComp.layer(i).inPoint))

}

list;

If you need to pull…

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I am curious if separating the x and y would solve the issue.

Hi!

The expression is adding a “+” to the end of the number and therefore putting the comma in the wrong spot.

Try this line instead:

s = ease (t, 0, dur, beginCount, endCount).toFixed(numDecimals);

And let me know if that’s just not what you’re looking for.

Trent

Adam,

That is good info. I think the problem, at least for the syntax, was the braces for the if/then statement.

if (something) {this} else {that}

— or —

if (something) {

this

} else {

that

}

I’m not sure about your exponential movement issue, but you might need to multiply the height * .5.

We’re all pulling for you!

Adam,

I’m curious if it’s not doing what you want or if it’s breaking. I realized after much gnashing of teeth that the new expression engine asks for more coding language like:

if (a>32) {[960,540]} else {[960, 640]}

Kevin may have gotten you to the right place, but I wanted to make sure you’re not experiencing a “gotcha”.

Trent

Hey there!

I created a text layer with two lines and added an expression slider to that layer called “Adjust me”. And I set the value of the slider to 100. Then I used this expression in the Source Text expression field.

s = effect(“Adjust Me”)(“Slider”);

style.setFontSize(s).setLeading(s);

Try that out and let me know if you have any questions.

Awesome stuff! Yeah. I messed around with mine a bit, and it works better with the Null (and expressions attached box) sitting on the bottom edge of the top layer instead of being offset.

Maybe I’ll be able to help next time! 😉

Try this aep:

https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/68502bc0-057c-4b88-7e3f-965ba4d5c038

It’s a bummer, but AE doesn’t have the ability to have two different fonts in one text layer through expressions, yet. If you’re trying to keep “layers” to a minimum and not necessarily compositions, you could do what Chris suggests. Create a Comp that has the names in the style you want, use an expression to read the comp name and split it up,…

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Great stuff!

That’s pretty awesome! I hope it looks good for you!