"Importing" a graphic from one comp to another

[MotionRevolverAE]

Here's my question, hopefully I can explain this clearly enough:

I'm working on an Olympics-themed project in which I've imported 200+ country flag graphics (.ai layers) into a single composition. I'm going to place that 200-flag master flag comp inside of a composition that contains a lower third graphic. Inside of that lower third graphic, I'd like the user to be able to select a particular flag graphic via a single control layer containing checkboxes for each country. 

If I only needed to link that 200-flag master comp to a single external composition, this would be easy... HOWEVER, I'd like my client to be able to duplicate the lower third composition as many times as he needs.

For example: if the project requires the creation 3 separate athlete lower thirds from the countries of USA, UK, and Norway, I'd like the user to be able to duplicate the pre-made lower third comp, and then from checkboxes on a main control layer be able to select the corresponding country flag from the master 200-flag comp to display within the lower third graphic.

Overall, I'm attempting to avoid needing 200+ flag graphics hidden within each lower third graphic, and instead, "import" each flag graphic from the main 200-flag comp.

Is this possible?

[Mylenium]

Why would you even do that? I mean, do you really plan on setting up 200 expression controls and writing an expression that contains 200 conditional statements? That's a completely nonsensical workflow and would be a million times more clunky then just having the layers directly in the comp and toggling their visibility. That aside, an expression-driven comp would be "exclusive", meaning it ever can only be controlled from one parent comp, so you wouldn't be able to re-use the comp, anyway. The only other option would be to have the flags sequenced in a pre-comp and use time-remapping on the pre-comp, but even then you simply wouldn't use checkboxes for practical reasons. You'd use the direct control or some slider that jumps to the relevant segment based on an index. Again, your original idea just has no merit at all. The whole approach - dare I say it - would totally suck for anyone involved. You waste your time setting it up and for the ones using it it has zero benefits.

Mylenium

[MotionRevolverAE]

Haha yeah, I sort of thought I might get this kind of reaction. What I'm trying to create is a buttoned-up project with expression-driven customization features, instead of forcing the client to sift through hundreds of layers in the timeline. I'd like to present each comp with a couple of editable text layers and nothing else. Obviously, simply placing all 200 flag graphics in the timeline and toggling them on/off is the simplest way, but it's also the most rudimentary.

While it's a somewhat decent amount of work up front to create 200 if/else expressions, it's mostly a matter of copying and pasting the same code, and changing the layer attribute for each. It would take maybe 30 minutes – not as crazy as you'd imagine.

Then, the client would click a checkbox instead of navigating to through the timeline, which in my opinion, creates a much higher perceived value and cleaner appearance. Setting up a project this way might not be for a designer who's unwilling to put in a little bit of work to create less cluttered project, but I certainly disagree that there's no benefit to this sort of setup.

Thanks anyway, I appreciate the response.

[Mylenium]

I think you totally understimate the complexity. It's not like you could just copy & paste 200 expressions with 3 lines each. We're talking a genuine monster expression here that contains all 200 states and needs to be applied to all 200 flags. We're talking more like 500 lines of code per each expression. Simple as the individual statrments may be, they would be nested or chained together using boolean operators. That alone is extremely prone to error - forget to adapt one of the states and suddenly you have two flags showing up. Again, for such an otherwise simple task it makes totally no sense. IMO you are totally and unnecessarily overcomplicating things, even more so since it doesn't eliminate your problem or, more to the point, even adds another level of complication. What's stopping your users to just tick two flags at a time? If the internal expression logic is not hardened, again just another disaster waiting to happen. also I see totally no benefit of having 200 expression controls. You know, that effects control panel still needs to be scrolled a lot since there is no realistic way to display all entries at once. I maintain - to me it just makes no sense, but feel free to wreck your brain about it and get everyone frustrated.

Mylenium

[MotionRevolverAE]

We're getting way beyond the point. Let's forget about the 200 number for a minute...

I was mostly wondering if there's a way to surpass the "exclusive " state of a composition (as you mentioned earlier), via expressions. Such as something like "If checkbox 1 is checked, display Layer 20 of flag composition". But I believe you answered that in your original response.

[Roland Kahlenberg · Accepted solution]

Checkboxes were designed for choosing one of two available options. They are not meant to select ONE from anything more than TWO.

You should be looking at using pop-up menus and for this, you will need to create a PseudoEffect. Pseudo Effect Maker is a script that helps you create Pseudo Effects using a graphic UI.

Also, it is ideal to populate a single menu with no more than between 45-50 items. A longer list will mean lots of scrolling to reach the items at the bottom of the list. So, look at ways to have four pop-up menus by separating countries based on region, alphabetical order or how great their women look - to the extent that you get something close to 4-5 pop-up menus, delineated, in a logical manner.

For the flags thingy; just place them in a comp; all starting at time 0 and lasting for the duration of the comp. Apply an expression to their respective opacity property which links to the pop-up menus.

[MotionRevolverAE]

In this case, the checkmark would be used to toggle an on/off state, so it's not being used to choose from anything more than two options.

Thanks Roland, I'll look into creating a Pseudo Effect.

[Roland Kahlenberg]

There is no on/off state to check. There is Active State but this is all useless for your needs and is more trouble than it's worth!

JUST place a script in either Opacity or Scale (better option) that sets its value to 100 ([100,100] for Scale) if its related item in the pop-up has been selected. If it's not selected, then set these values to 0. In fact, you may want to have a Default Image if no flag has been selected in the pop-ups.

It's a fair bit of work to get this done but if you're knowledgeable and quick, one to two days is a possibility. If you're new to creating PseudoEffects then give yourself about 4-7 days.