The global object in After Effects
It’s all about the $. One of the undocumented expression language feature in After Effects is the global object, also known as $. And it turns out that $ can bring you happiness…
After Effects, scripting and nerdery
It’s all about the $. One of the undocumented expression language feature in After Effects is the global object, also known as $. And it turns out that $ can bring you happiness…
I have some background elements that I want to wander around, and because I’m lazy I don’t want to hand animate them, so they just have a wiggle expression applied to their position channel and auto-orient switched on. Instant crowd scene! But I want them to have a drop shadow. Normally to keep the drop … Continue reading Auto orienting the drop shadow on an auto-oriented layer
From the “Posted on the Blog so I Can Remember it Next Time” department: A useful expression for making things symmetrical.
If you want your AE project to access data from an external file to drive expressions you can use the javascript evalFile() function in an expression.
You can use text layers in After Effects as expression editors which means, among other things that a whole lot of layers can use the same expression. This has some big advantages: expressions update as you type, which gives you instant feedback. You can see and edit your expression right in the composition viewer, without … Continue reading Using text layers as expression editors in After Effects
The lookAt() function in After Effects’ expression language doesn’t work for 2D. If you’re trying to use it to align the layer to look at a given point, without having to remember all the trigonometry you learned in school, it turns out you should have spent less time smoking behind the shelter sheds, because this is … Continue reading LookAtMe! A 2D lookAt() function in AE Expressions
I’ve built my own version of built-in After Effects expressions functions. Here’s why.
It’s great to be able to animate a stack of layers using familiar Beziér handles. This is great for flexible spines, caterpillars, snakes, or in the example I’m working on: swimming fish. It creates an easy to use rig, that allows you to easily create fluid motion with minimal controls.