Hi all
I've tried many ways to track vertex coordinates of a path(beign it mask or shape path). And the only solution i've found until now was making scripts, which works well, but is not ideal, since running a script everytime a modification is done on the path is not workflow-friendly, specially when making 2D shape animation, where you are always making tiny adjustments on the path and RAM-previewing it like 10 times in 2 minutes, to feel the flow of the motion.
The other way, that was almost perfect for me, was trying to take the vertices data through expressions, but when you get the shape object from the expression, example: thisComp.layer("some-solid").mask("my mask").maskPath.value ...... the value inside after effects becomes an empty [object Object], and in Extendscript Tool, that same object is a [object Shape] with all the information in it. I guess Adobe took off that particular object from expression for perfomance reasons, but i'm not sure.
So, i became aware of things like PathDataSuite and PF_PathVertex from the SDK, which is exaclty what i was looking for, but i was wondering how would be the best way to ouput that data through Effects, to be accessible by expressions, and then, inside After Effects, with expressions, i decide what to do with the path data given by the plugin. But, looking at all the other existing plugins, i realized that the only properties that are accessible by expressions, are things like point, rotation, sliders, dropdown menus, etc....
My question is: How can i output path data through an Effect's property, reachable by expressions. Could be something similar to "Source Text" property, with a string in array format, like [ verticesArray , inTangentsArray ,outTangentsArray ].
Example of 1 segment: [ [ [0,0] , [10,0] ] , [ [-10,-10] , [10,10] ] , [ [10,10] , [-9,0] ] ]
And then, on the position property of a null, i could write the expression: effect("My Effect")("Path data")[0][0]; to get the first vertex position data, and then, doesn't matter where i put that vertex, the null will always follow it's position(relatively).
Finally, in the SDK i was looking for something like PF_ADD_PARAM that could act as if it was PF_ADD_TEXT If you know what i mean.
Any ideas?
P.S. if you made it through here, thank you for reading all this.