Render problems with an animated graph in AE comp based on CSV data and expressions.

[aTomician]

Hello all,

What I've tried

I've been working on a fairly heavy After Effects comp for a while.  I've got a video coming up that will use a bunch of animated graphs throughout, so I wanted to set up a comp that took CSV data and spat out an animated graph.  In hindsight, is AE the wrong tool?  Should I have used something else?  I don't know but anyhow:

I've finally got a working comp that does everything I need.  Secretly I'm a little bit proud of it.  I can load a CSV file directly into AE, tie it into the data paths for the graph, tweak some controls and then it animated the data paths to the correct positions based on the CSV values.  It's heavy going, there's around 20 layers and over half of them are showing 100-200ms to evaluate when I use the snail icon.

However...

It won't render correctly.

Which as you can imagine, is a fairly big spanner in the works.  I don't know why it won't render either.  The graph and the paths all show up as they should in Composition view in AE.  There are no script errors, no yellow warning triangles.  Everything previews fine.  But when I export, the graph is exported, but with no data paths.  The same goes for if I use dynamic link to embed the project into Premiere Pro (that's what I tried first).  Graph outline is there, no data paths.

I've put further details below, but ultimately, if you've got any thoughts why paths created by expressions won't render, I'd welcome any and all input!

Details

This is what I'm seeing in AE, and what is should look like.  The playhead moves as you play, and the data paths only draw up to where the play head is.

This is my second screen showing the layers and the logic behind drawing the graph path.

When I render it out however (as a sequence):

No data paths.  Shows the same in Premiere using dynamic link to add the comp.  Occasionally I'll get a preview in Premiere Pro showing correctly, but the export never contains the data paths.

Premiere program window:

Any thoughts welcomed 🙂  Put a lot of work into this already and very keen for it to work.

[aTomician]

I think it's the expressions that are based off the CSV that don't work.  Everything else seems fine.

[Dan Ebberts]

Does it make any difference if you drag the csv file(s) into your comp as layers?