Feeding the first frame of a comp with numerous other frames

[tappit]

Hi, I've been thinking about a way to feed the first frame of a comp with a series of images so that I can animate an extrusion with the shatter effect.

In short, Shatter looks at the first frame of the layer map it's given to determine what to extrude. So I am trying to find a way to feed a series of frames into the first frame of a comp to see if I can animate the extruded text. Does this make sense?

I know shatter can handle it as I can manually pull the layer map through and see the extrusion change, but I can't work out how to get that same effect without the manual element.

My idea is to make the map layer a composition with a series of single frames on multiple layers where I turn the opcaity on and off for each layer in turn as frame numbers match index numbers. But I can't work it out and have hit a brick wall.

What I have is this :

var curTime = comp 1.time*thisComp.frameDuration; //<--- wanted to use frame rate but again can't work out how! This part is about changing time into frame numbers to match to index numbers//

if (curTime == index)
{
Opacity = 100:
}
else
{
Opacity = 0;
}

However, I suspect that this will only turn the layers on at the frame point rather than turning the whole layer on or off.

Any ideas or thoughts would be appreciated
Thanks
tappit

PS - I'm no expert at expressions so please keep it simple for me

[kraschtm]

I think that the only way is to use a script cause i don't see any other way than having one shatter layer for each frame and one reference layer for each shatter layer. but with a script it shouldn't be very complicated... i'll try to think about it.

[tappit]

Thanks kraschtm, I appreciate you taking the time to think it through. If you get it working, would it be ok if I based a tutorial on Creative Cow on it?
Thanks