Choosing active camera of precomp?

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riddlerenigma
Posts: 2
Joined: April 15th, 2010, 2:11 pm

Hey all, so I'm wondering if this is even possible, but...

Is there a way to choose the active camera of a precomp via an expression?

Say for example, you have a comp with 2 or more cameras in it. You bring that comp into another main comp, effectively making the comp with all the cameras in it a precomp.

Is there an expression (or script) that you can apply to the precomp, to force it to look through or make active a specific one of the cameras within the precomp?

So basically, within the main comp, you can have 2 or more copies of the precomp, but all the precomps are looking through different cameras?

______________________________
-Cameras_precomp
Camera1
Camera2

-Main_comp
Cameras_precomp (...expression to look through "Camera1 in Cameras_precomp"?)
Cameras_precomp (...expression to look through "Camera2" in Cameras_precomp?)
_______________________________

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Dan
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lloydalvarez
Enhancement master
Posts: 460
Joined: June 17th, 2004, 9:27 am
Location: New York City, NY
Contact:

Code: Select all

thisComp.activeCamera
riddlerenigma
Posts: 2
Joined: April 15th, 2010, 2:11 pm

Thanks Lloyd! Awesome scripts on aescripts BTW!

But is there a way to control which camera is active from a different comp? Or choose which camera is active within a precomp?

Basically I am trying to come up with an easy way to do stereoscopic anaglyphics that is easily previewable, within AE. So, here are how my ideal comps/layers would be setup:

-CameraComp
---CameraCenter (used to animate scene, with expression attaching point of interest to Null)
---CameraLeftEye (parented to CameraCenter, with expression attached to a slider that automatically moves farther left of CameraCenter's position, and expression to attach point of interest to Null for convergence point)
---CameraRightEye (parented to CameraCenter, with expression attached to a slider that automatically moves farther right of CameraCenter's position, and expression to attach point of interest to Null for convergence point)
---Null (3D, that would be the target for the convergence point)
---Solid (invisible to scene, with slider controlling distance between left and right)
---all the animation and misc layers below

-MainComp
---Solid (with 3Dglasses plugin, setting first 'cameracomp' below to left eye and second 'cameracomp' to right eye
---CameraComp (with expression using "CameraLeftEye" to process precomp)
---CameraComp (with expression using "CameraRightEye" to process precomp)



I am vet. after effects user, but quite a noob to expressions/scripting. So not sure if this is even possible. But good to ask an expert like you. :)

What would be even more amazing is if all this could be done in one comp... But I don't think that possible with the order in which after effects processes layers/cameras/etc.

Thanks,
Dan.
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lloydalvarez
Enhancement master
Posts: 460
Joined: June 17th, 2004, 9:27 am
Location: New York City, NY
Contact:

Not sure I follow your question 100% but you can trim your camera layers to change which camera is the active camera in the comp.

-Lloyd
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