Thank you - I really appreciate that. I'm still confused on one point though. In your "//process the image according to the correct bit depth" section - if I don't want my plug-in to affect the image in any way, do I still need code to copy input to output, and if so, does that look different according to the bit depth? Dan ... View more

> I didn't really try it, but I suppose the total keyframes is given by .numKeys? Yes. >is there a way to get the time which this keyframe is set? .keyTime(index) Dan ... View more

The file path isn't accessible to expressions, so you couldn't wire up something like my example that would automatically display the path of the current visible layer. You could do something similar with a script, but it wouldn't be "live". That is, if you changed your comp, you'd have to run the script again. A script does have access to everything that would be necessary to figure out the file path of the currently visible footage item. It wouldn't be nearly as simple as the expression, but certainly doable. Dan ... View more

Try replacing your loopOut() time remapping expression with this one: period = key(numKeys).time - key(1).time; time%period Dan ... View more

No, an expression can only affect the property to which it's applied. Dan ... View more

The problem is that whatever is in the file has to be valid JavaScript syntax. I think it would be tricky to get that to work with a bunch of spreadsheet data. Dan ... View more

Ah, if the camera has a parent, this should work better: C = thisComp.activeCamera; p0 = C.toWorld([0,0,0],0); p1 = C.toWorld([0,0,0],time) value + (p1 - p0)*0.25 Note that you won't see any movement until you animate the camera position over time. Dan ... View more

Probably something like this: thisComp.activeCamera.transform.position; value + (P - P.valueAtTime(0))*0.25 Dan ... View more

It could be as simple as just adding .wiggle() to your pickwhip-generated expression. Like this: thisComp.layer("Blue Solid 1").transform.position.wiggle(3,50) Dan ... View more

I keep forgetting about that change. It should be like this: charVal = thisProperty.propertyGroup(3).property.characterValue; Dan ... View more

Just for fun, here's how you can do it without the null: L = comp("SUN COMP").layer("Sun Layer"); p1 = L.toWorld(L.anchorPoint); p2 = comp("BG COMP").layer("SUN COMP").toWorld(p1); thisComp.layer("BG COMP").toComp(p2) Dan ... View more

Did you try it this way? L = thisComp.layer("sun"); L.toComp(L.anchorPoint) Dan ... View more

I did the mapping  a different way, like this: charVal = propertyGroup(3).property.characterValue; ((newChar - oldChar)/(charVal - oldChar))*100 It may give the same result as your linear() call, but I'm not sure. Dan ... View more

I've been playing around with this and it's really quite powerful. I've had a number of jobs where this would have solved a major problem. You can set up a template text layer with different formatting for different fields. You use special characters to denote the different fields and include enough of them to accomodate the longest entry you might have. For example, for a name and phone number, the template might look like this: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ ############## Where "$" represents a name character and "#" represents a phone number character. Then, using this technique, you just replace the appropriate characters. For any template characters left over, you replace them with the Unicode Zero Width Space character (8203). Then you just need to add Tracking to the Animator and set the Character Alignment parameter to Adjust Kerning to remove the space of the unused characters. The result ends up looking like this: Joe Smith 123.456.7890 One other note - here's the name-independent way to pick up the value from the Character Value property: charVal = propertyGroup(3).property.characterValue; Dan ... View more

I think this should work for what you're trying to do. For two keyframes it should give the same result as if you applied AE's exonential scale. If there are more than two keyframes, it will apply the exponential scale between each adjacent pair of keyframes. Should work for multi-dimensional properties as well. I just took it out of the oven, so it may not be completely cooked. Let me know if you run into problems. n = 0; if (numKeys > 0){   n = nearestKey(time).index;     if (key(n).time > time){       n--;     } } if (n == 0 || n == numKeys){   value }else{   d = 1   try{     value[1];     d++;     value[2];     d++;     value[3];     d++;   }catch (err){   }   t1 = key(n).time;   t2 = key(n+1).time;   if (d == 1){     v1 = key(n).value;     if (v1 == 0) v1 = .0001;     v2 = key(n+1).value;     if (v2 == 0) v2 = .0001;     k = Math.log(v1/v2)/(t2-t1);     v1/Math.exp((time-t1)*k)   }else{     v = [];     for(i = 0; i < d; i++){       v1 = key(n).value;       if (v1 == 0) v1 = .0001;       v2 = key(n+1).value;       if (v2 == 0) v2 = .0001;       k = Math.log(v1/v2)/(t2-t1);       v = v1/Math.exp((time-t1)*k)     }     v   } } Dan ... View more

That's very clever. I think I learned as much as you did. Thanks! Dan ... View more

There are a bunch of ways to do this. This one assumes that the layer stops at each even-numbered keyframe: dur = 1; // total wiggle duration (sec) ramp = .1;// time to ramp int0/out of wiggle freq = 3; // wiggle frequency amp = 50; // wiggle amplitude; n = 0; if (numKeys > 0){   n = nearestKey(time).index;     if (key(n).time > time){       n--;     } } if (n > 0 && (n%2 == 0)){   t = time - key(n).time   w = wiggle(freq,amp);   if (t < ramp){     linear(t,0,ramp,value,w)   }else{     linear(t,dur-ramp,dur,w,value)   } }else{   value } Dan ... View more

That attribute (collapseTransformation) is avialable to scripting, but not expressions. Dan ... View more

You were all around it. Try this: s = thisComp.layer("solid").effect("Sound Keys")("Output 1"); transform.scale + [s,s] Dan ... View more

You can simplify the math a little if you keep everything as vectors: slider = effect("Slider Control")("Slider"); T1 = thisComp.layer("your_track_layer").motionTracker("Tracker 1")("Track Point 1").attachPoint; T2 = thisComp.layer("your_track_layer").motionTracker("Tracker 1")("Track Point 2").attachPoint; T1 + normalize(T1-T2)*slider Dan ... View more

I'm not sure what the problem is (except that your curly brackets are wrong), but this opacity expression works: if ((time < 4) || (time > 10)){ 0 }else{ 100 } Dan ... View more

You could use Premiere or Soundbooth (CS4) to transcribe the audio, then when you import the file into After Effects, the individual words will show up as layer markers. You could modify your expression to only be active during the duration of appropriate markers. Dan ... View more

Use the Convert Audio to Keyframes keyframe assistant to create a new layer with sliders representing the audio level. Then pickwhip to that. Dan ... View more

Like this: delay = 3; t = time - (inPoint+delay); if (t < 0){ value }else{ veloc = 10; amplitude = 150; decay = 2; amplitude*Math.sin(veloc*t)/Math.exp(decay*t) } Dan ... View more

This will ramp the opacity from 0 to 100 as the layer moves from 0 to 500 pixels away from the camera. Should be easy to modify if it's not exactly what you're after: maxDist = 500; minDist = 0; maxOpacity = 100; minOpacity = 0; C = thisComp.activeCamera; d = length(C.toWorld([0,0,0]),toWorld(anchorPoint)); linear(d,minDist,maxDist,minOpacity,maxOpacity) Dan ... View more