[Walter Soyka]

Try this:

L = thisComp.layer("Motion Path A");
if (L.transform.position.numKeys > 1) {
L.transform.position.valueAtTime(L.transform.position.key(1).time);
} else {
L.transform.position;
}

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

Most of the other transforms have shortcuts for their dialogs (try Ctrl+Shift+P to see the Position dialog), but Scale and Anchor Point do not.

You will have to use the Keyboard Shortcuts editor to assign a keystroke to Layer > Transform > Scale…

Once that’s done, you can use it in your automation to get the dialog box you need.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

[Marko Suto] “Hi, this is what I use for daily TV broadcast:
https://aescripts.com/compsfromspreadsheet/“

Absolutely, CompsFromSpreadsheet is a fantastic solution for turning out many data-driven variations on one template. We use it a lot, too.

My script above is not even a little helpful for that scenario! This will set up a set of different, blank comps with different and customizable names, resolutions, PARs, durations, and frame rates.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

[Adam Lewen] “Walter, where do you post publicly?”

Here, mainly! But I do have a set of scripts available on my dusty old blog, Render Break:
https://www.renderbreak.com/

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

[Brooks Tomlinson] “I currently am a flame Op, so I am stuck on mac, because linux is well… linux…. I would be a happy person if flame came to windows. “

From your lips to Montreal’s ears.

[Brooks Tomlinson] “Walter, how do you feel about Apple droping Cinform?”

I think Apple was right to drop the 32-bit QuickTime library. It’s long past time. What I would have liked to have seen was third-party codec support in AVFoundation, like we used to have in QuickTime via components, so a user could install a system-wide CineForm plugin and have all video applications be able to understand CineForm MOVs.

I liked having video decode available at the system level. I think it’s a major step backwards that each application must now feature its own direct support for different video formats.

1) Incompatibility has resurfaced. Some apps will simply never support some formats because the developers can’t or won’t address them. It’s like the platform wars of the 1980s and 1990s all over again.

2) It’s a big waste of development resources. Each developer has to write their own support, and that takes time away from their core application development.

3) Having so many different implementations is a potential minefield of subtle differences. I understand that Apple is pretty strict about their ProRes implementations (which is good), but I know correctly managing DHxHD and DNxHR data/video levels and color shifts are a constant headache across applications.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

I haven’t had any issues like this with shape layers. Have you tried rebooting or resetting your preferences? Hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift (macOS) while starting After Effects.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

You could animate the Bezier Warp effect to get that look.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

That’d be helpful. I’d also like to see your project settings, a screenshot that shows the entire UI in Ae (where presumably everything looks right), and a screenshot that shows what the problematic output looks like.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

Can you post some screenshots that show your entire Ae UI and that show the problem you’re seeing?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

You’re welcome, Adam. This looked like the sort of thing we could use, too, so hopefully it works well for both of us. Please do feel free to share; I post these publicly so the whole community can benefit.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]