Bit of a noob question.
I’ve created a number of scripted effects, internally driven by variables. I’d like to be able to control them – those variables – with timelines.
For example, I’ve made a scripted particle emitter, and in the script there’s a vector emitter_pos that detemines where it emits from. If I want to use a timeline to animate that vector variable, the only way I can see (and that I’m doing at the moment) is to use a timeline to animate another “null” object, and then I read that object’s position every time I update the particles to find out where the emitter should be.
Using a “null” object like this is pretty intuitive for position, but if I’ve got other things I want to control, it starts getting a bit silly - I want to animate a variable that controls how many particles are being emitted, but the only timeline-animatable things I can use are the normal properties an ordinary object has. So I may decide: let’s use the alpha channel of the color property for that. Starts getting a bit crazy having to remember which property controls which, though.
Is this the only way to do this sort of thing, or is there a way I can register a script variable as a property, so it’ll appear in the props pane and can be animated in a timeline?
(I only ask because you can kinda make custom props on subsymbols by right-clicking a prop and choosing “Reference…” which makes that prop appear out in the parent symbol. You can name 'em and all. But you can only promote properties that objects come with out of the box, not create new arbitrary props, as far as I can tell)