ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 7.0
User Guide
557
Drag the pick whip to a property to create a link to the property’s value.
See also
“About animation and layer properties” on page 188
Selecting values with the pick whip
When you use the pick whip, you can drag it to a property’s name or to its values. If you drag to the property’s name,
the resulting expression displays all the values as one. For example, if you drag the pick whip to the Position
property’s name, the following expression appears:
p o s it i on
If you drag the pick whip to one of the Position property’s values (such as the y value), the following expression
appears, providing access to the specific Array values:
[ p o s it i on [ 1 ] , p o s it i on [ 1 ] ]
Once you select a property’s name or value, After Effects automatically inserts the appropriate expression in the
expression field at the location of the cursor. If text is already selected in the expression field, that text is replaced by
the new expression text. If the cursor is not in the expression field, all text in the field is replaced by the new text.
If the layer, mask, or effect name that you drag the pick whip to is not unique, After Effects renames it. For example,
if you have two or more masks named “Mask” and you drag the pick whip to one of them, After Effects renames it
“Mask 2”.
See also
“About animation and layer properties” on page 188
To modify pick whip expressions
Once you use the pick whip to create an expression, you can perform simple edits to alter the expression’s effect. For
example, you can add a scale factor to the expression to increase or decrease the effect.
❖
Type directly in the expression field, and then press Enter on the numeric keypad or click outside of the field to
activate the expression.
You can modify a pick-whip expression by using simple math operations, such as those listed in the following table:
Symbol
Function
+
add
-
subtract
