First time visiting these forums but they look like a super helpful place so any response is awesome.
I'm trying to save myself some headache by creating one animation ("CircleIcon") and then using it over and over again. I'm accessing a property of the precomp by using the following expression:
comp("CircleIcon").layer("Parent_Icon_To_This").transform.opacity
Here's what I'm creating: A series of circles that animate on, with a different icon in each circle. I want them all to animate on with the same animation but staggered slightly in time. The "CircleIcon" comp has a null object ("Parent_Icon_To_This") which I am hoping I can animate however I want, and then parent each icon to in the main comp.
Only problem with this is that when I parent each icon to a different instance of the "CircleIcon" comp in my main timeline, the icons don't get parented to the timing of the instances of the "CircleIcon" comp, they get parented to the original "CircleIcon" comp timing and then the timings for the fade-ins are simultaneous instead of staggered.
Basically, I just need help figuring out the syntax to reference the properties of an instance of a precomp, rather than the precomp itself, that way I can have the timing stagger. I found a snippet of code on these forums that looked close to correct, but it's not working for what I'm trying to do:
L = thisComp.layer("CircleIcon_01");
L.toComp(L.content("Parent_Icon_To_This").transform.opacity)
the basic structure I think I need is like this:
thisComp.layer.layerOfThePrecomp.transform.opacity
Any help is greatly appreciated. Or if there's another way to do this, I'm open to suggestions. Thanks in advance!
-Jeremy