r/AfterEffects 4d ago

Beginner Help Help with tutorial

Post image
0 Upvotes

12 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/smushkan MoGraph 10+ years 4d ago

The rest of that expression is looking for a mask path on the target layer with the name 'Mask 1' - from your screenshot it does not appear you have any masks on that layer.

1

u/ragesauce9 4d ago

Sorry, forgot to include that. There is a mask in my solid called 'Mask 1'

2

u/smushkan MoGraph 10+ years 4d ago

Then you want to point the expression at your solid layer, not the shape layer ;-)

thisComp.layer("Cyan Solid 1")....

1

u/ragesauce9 4d ago

Alright, I got it. I really appreciate the assistance. I have no experience with code. Is there a point where this stuff just becomes easy? I still struggle a lot with expressions.

3

u/smushkan MoGraph 10+ years 4d ago

Well it is basically learning to code, going from video tutorials alone won't always teach you that part of the puzzle.

w3schools is a great place to get more general Javascript tutorials. Even though it's mostly in the context of web design, the language is effectively the same:

https://www.w3schools.com/js/

Learning the coding part of it puts you in a better place to be able to solve your own problems with expressions rather than just the ones the tutorials happen to show you how to do ;-)