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Known Participant
January 9, 2023
Question

valueAtTime on a time remapped layer issues

  • January 9, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 867 views

I have a layer that is time remapped. On another property of that layer, I have an expression that needs to catch the value of sourceText of a text layer at the current timecode of the comp. This second layer is not time remapped.

Somehow, the time remap of the first layer seems to mess up the value of the sourceText of the second layer. If I pick whip it, it catches the value at the time of the time remap, not the current time of the comp.

What I’m thinking is I should be able to solve this with a valueAtTime, like

 

thisComp.layer(“text layer).text.sourceText.valueAtTime(time);

 

but somehow I can’t get it right.
Am I making sense? Is there an easy solution?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Mylenium
Brainiac
January 11, 2023

Agreee with Dan. Your approach is simply unsuitable. As soon as you mess with time-remapping and pre-comps anything becomes an unpredictable mess as there is indeed no good way to un-warp time with a simple function and things become even messier the deeper the nesting goes. To that point you have to make up your mind what you actually want. It certainly would be possible to control things inside the pre-comp with valueAtTime() and manipulating time-remapping on individual layers using a remotely linked slider in the parent comp or whatever, but time-remapping the entire comp and trying to figure out how to undo it for some elements is a guaranteed way into disaster.

 

Mylenium

Dan Ebberts
Community Expert
January 9, 2023

I can't replicate your result. If I add a slider to the time remapped layer and add this expression:

time

it just progresses along with the comp time, as you'd expect. Also picking up the source text from a non-time-remapped text layer gives the same result-- it retrieves the current value based on comp. There must be something peculiar about your setup. Can you post a screen capture?

 

 

Known Participant
January 10, 2023

Thank you for your quick response. I'll do some troubleshooting on my own now that I know my results are not as expected. I'll let you know and/or a screen capture of my setup if I don't succeed.