AE Feature I REEEALLY want

#1

I want compositions to have inputs. For instance, if you create a composition that has a layer with Particle World in it, you can hook the position of the particle generator to a Position control input on the composition. Then, you can put this composition into another composition and control the position from the outside. If you duplicate this layer (so 2 layers of the same composition), you can control the starting position separately.

Is there a hack to do this? Otherwise, do I need to beg and plead with Adobe? I think this one feature would increase the power of AE immensely.

#2

You can do that fairly easily with an expression controller. Just create a new layer, apply an expression controller/point control, alt-click the position attribute for Particle world, and bind it to the layer and composition you are working in.

Occasionally if I’m lazy, I will just hit the lock icon for the effect window, toggle over to the composition I’m working in, and tweak it that way.

#3

I’m not sure if I explained it clearly. Here’s an example.

Suppose I have a composition called Lightning. And I have a composition called Scene. In Scene, I have two layers that are instantiations of Lightning. I want each to have a separate beginning point for the lightning bolt without having to duplicate the whole Lightning composition.

@Iaenic, I think your solution would not allow this because it would tie the Lightning composition bolt location to one expression, and would not allow for two separate bolt layers at different locations.

#4

Time remapping, expressions, whatever…?! Because you use wrong terminology, you probably don’t find what you are looking for and frankly, I don’t understand you, either.

Mylenium

#5

@Mylenium, was that directed at me? If so, what terminology do I have wrong? Did you post to the wrong thread?

#6

If I understand you correctly, I’m afraid there’s no way to accomplish what you’re looking for. There isn’t a way to instance the same effect and have separate settings for each one. You have to duplicate the layers or effects and work with them independently.

That said, there might be another option, but it takes a little more time to set up. If your expecting to have two identical effects that you only expect to change one or two parameters for; duplicate the effect, and then use expressions to bind the settings for one effect to the other. For example, you could have two lightning effects with the Conductivity, Turbulence, Forking, Decay etc of one bound to the other. That way, you could edit their positions separately. Then, if somewhere down the line you find you need to adjust the forking for both, you only have to make the changes to the master lighting effect and the rest will follow suit.

That option would really only save you time if you had lots of lighting effects in different compositions, otherwise it would just be faster to copy the settings from one key frame to another.

#7

Nope. I must apologize. Seems I was under too much stress at work. Still, the way you put it is confusing. You are not really requesting instantiation of any kind (which would be major hocuspocus, given the contradictory nature of your request), but rather for compositions to exist as re-usable units with exposed controls. This is more analogous to using containers/ macros in node-based programs. Can’t have anything against that. AE’s current infrastructure is far from remotely being able to do any such thing. Your specific request is even prevented by such a minor thing as no 3D point expression control existing. Maybe by the time around CS7 Adobe eventually figure it out, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Mylenium

#8

Thanks for the responses! I just wanted to double check that this functionality is not already there, nor is there a workaround. The functionality itself is pretty basic, and, seemingly, wouldn’t be a major change from the After Effects source base.

The places that would be tough would be in cache invalidation. Right now, a composition can be fairly easily cached after each render, but with individual instantiations it becomes tougher.

Maybe I should make a mock-tutorial using this fictional feature and see if anybody at Adobe cares.

#9

I think they are aware of that, but development resources, like anything else on this planet, are not endless and some sleep is okay even for geeky programmers, too. :wink: Of course feel free to add your ideas to the discussion if you feel like it.

Mylenium

#10

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