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OCTOBER 07, 2003 Express Your Flare
Keep it together: Expression Controller Sure the elements are separate now, but on top of keyframing different brightness levels, scales and spreads, the one thing they all share is a position for the Light Source Location.[an error occurred while processing this directive]After Effects has a set of plugins that control expressions. Not only will this help you get a handle on groups of data, but these plugins also help you keyframe expressions that you may not have thought possible, or just couldn't figure out the correct code to do so. The Expression Control we'll need is Point Control. Because this is going to be an expression path, it is important that you name it early if you want to change its name at all. I'll move it to the top of the plugin chain for management purposes only. Adding the expression We'll need to add an expression to each of the plugins Light Source Location. After Effects has several was to do this. The easiest way I've found is to Option-click on the stopwatch of the parameter you want to add an expression to. Otherwise, with multiple parameters selected, you can use the standard shortcut, Option-Shift-=. Open the options for Point Control and leave it visible. With the expressions' options also visible, you'll notice three separate icons. The center icon is the pick whip. All you have to do is drag each plugin's whip to the "Point" option of Point Control. If you want to add offsets, a little bit of simple scripting will get you there. Here, the Chroma Hoop has been offset 50 pixels in the x (left), and 45 in the y (up).   Now when you want to move the flare around your scene, you don't have to manipulate each variable by hand, even copy and paste is replaced by this. You can also use these expressions controls to link the colors of the light in the lens flares, the rotation of the flares, and even use the slider values to animate offsets written into your expression. You can find a Mac demo of Knoll Light Factory 2 at RedGiant Software. You can find a copy of After Effect 6.0 Demo from Adobe's Tryout Pages. Ko Maruyama is a freelance animator and compositor in Hollywood. For questions and comments, you can find him hanging out in the After Effects forum. Prev 1 2 Related sites: • Animation Artist • AV Video • Creative Mac • Digital Animators • Digital Media Designer • Digital Post Production • Digital Producer • Digital Video Editing • DV Format • Film and Video Magazine • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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