[Willie Frazier]

Excellent, it’s working wonderfully now. Many, many thanks.

[Willie Frazier]

Right, so I realized what I needed to do there which is essentially enter higher values by a factor of 50 for each ‘spacing’ value in the expression on every layer to which it is applied, so that’s working.

One last thing that would make this complete would be to involve the dividing lines (not pictured in the previous screenshot). These dividers are essentially a horizontal 3px stroke in a shape layer with a repeater.

It feels like some iterate of this expression could also change the number of ‘copies’ the repeater is using, as well as the repeater’s ‘position’ value.

Is this possible?

[Willie Frazier]

Thanks Dan, that killed the errors, and it functions now,

However, what it seems to be doing is moving all the remaining text down collectively, though the spacing between the groups remains consistent. What I need it to do is increase the spacing in such a way that the content still fills the space, and the spacing between the groups increases evenly to facilitate that. I feel like I’m very close, but there is still one piece of the puzzle remaining. I have to hop into a production meeting, but if it will help, I’ll post screen shots of what is happening when I return in about 30 minutes.

[Willie Frazier]

Alas, no.. still returning the same error for line one… I don’t understand why it doesn’t work, it seems solid to me….

[Willie Frazier]

Great idea! I did try it however, and received an error:

Is it possibly that I have the position values separated?

**EDITT** I did try to combine the dimensions and reapply the expression, but the same error was returned.

By the way, I really appreciate the time you’ve taken so far to help wit these 2 issues I’ve had.. it is very illuminating, and extremely helpful.

[Willie Frazier]

Well, my goal here really is to make whatever intern they hand this over to’s life resemble hell as little as possible. Since what I need to toggle on or off consists of a row containing 3 text elements (a stat named flanked left and right with numbers) AND I have to animate them in a very specific way to match the established guidelines in the broadcast package (simple -Y animation with inverted alpha matte reveal), I opted for a route that is a little less ‘automatic’ but still fairly straightforward.

I have in the scene 3 ‘control nulls’ for Color, Content, and Position

The dividing lines between these stats are built with a single shape layer line and a repeater, and the ‘copies’ value has a slider control, so they can set it to 4, 5, 6.. whatever, and the Y position value of the repeater likewise has a slider control. Since the request here was for a 4-6 line variability option, I have the visible elements of each group linked to a group specific checkbox control for visibility. Each statistical group has it’s visible text parented to an ‘Ani’ null that will handle the -Y move. That null and the 3 matte objects that round out the group are subsequently parented to another null that allows the group to be globally repositioned.

So, if one wanted to change the setup from 6 groups to 4, they would do the following:

• Uncheck the checkbox control for visibility for groups 5 and 6
• Set the dividing lines count to 4
• Increase the Y to 200 (for example)
• Go to groups 2-4 and set that ‘Repos’ value from 150 greater than the preceding group to 200 greater.

In a perfect world, unchecking the visibility toggle control for a layer as in set 1 would make the rest of the steps happen automatically, but that seems more like the work of a script or plug-in, the authoring of which exceeds my current ability level to a prohibitive degree.

[Willie Frazier]

Right, yeah I originally read your first reply as needing to have separate text layers for feet and inches, each linked to its own slider control. On closer examination, I realized that was not the case.

[Willie Frazier]

Ok, I tried it exactly as written on a single source. It worked a treat! Thanks.

[Willie Frazier]

Actually, how would I scale that out to be a 4-6 line setup? And where would I apply this expression? With each row of text being its own layer, the Y value for each isn’t 150, rather its +150 from the previous group of text. Would I need to parent each group to the one above so that I have a consistent 150 value? This might make animating the text on tricky…

[Willie Frazier]

Yeah. I could.. and I will try it. My only concern here would be maintaining consistent spacing between values. Feet will always be a single number, but inches could be as many as 4 with decimal (10.5″ for example).