I'm having similar issues with Undo Groups, but not just with render stuff — with pretty much anything.
Suppose I have a UG called "Example UG," in which a project item is moved. The syntax is correct, as with Tom's examples above — and yet, when I run the script and then pull up the Edit menu to 'undo' it, the NAME of the operation AE wants to 'undo' is... "Move Item." Not "Example UG."
Thank you for reporting this. At the moment, it’s unclear what you would like to have changed.
The cause of what you are observing is that shape layers always inherit the dimensions of the composition that contains them. Thus, by changing the dimensions of the composition, you are also changing the dimensions of the shape layer.
You will get the same result if you apply a Point Control effect to a solid layer, and then change the dimensions of the solid layer. The coordinate values of the Point Control will scale to compensate.
The result in both cases is that coordinate values are scaled along with the layer so that the any rendered result is proportional to the original. If this wasn’t done, effects wouldn’t appear to scale with the rest of the layer and the result would look “wrong”.
I can see that may not be the result you expect from an unreferenced expression controller, however the Point Control effect remains an effect and if referenced could affect rendering. An exception would need to be made for an unreferenced controller to behave differently.
What about this behavior would you like to see changed? How should After Effects behave differently? Should this be a global change, or should there be affordance for the user to control the behavior?
For a case like this, I wouldn’t use a shape layer as the source for the Point Control effect. The Point Controller could be applied to a different layer type (solid or null) that doesn’t scale with the composition, or you could store and reference the value in a different way (text layer, comment, etc.). Or, as you’ve mentioned, you can write an expression in a way that compensates for any changes to the composition size.
Also: I would not say that shape layers aren’t meant to have renderable effects applied to them. If they weren’t, After Effects wouldn’t allow you to do so. Apply away!
Thank you for reporting this. At the moment, it’s unclear what you would like to have changed.
The cause of what you are observing is that shape layers always inherit the dimensions of the composition that contains them. Thus, by changing the dimensions of the composition, you are also changing the dimensions of the shape layer.
You will get the same result if you apply a Point Control effect to a solid layer, and then change the dimensions of the solid layer. The coordinate values of the Point Control will scale to compensate.
The result in both cases is that coordinate values are scaled along with the layer so that the any rendered result is proportional to the original. If this wasn’t done, effects wouldn’t appear to scale with the rest of the layer and the result would look “wrong”.
I'm having similar issues with Undo Groups, but not just with render stuff — with pretty much anything.
Suppose I have a UG called "Example UG," in which a project item is moved. The syntax is correct, as with Tom's examples above — and yet, when I run the script and then pull up the Edit menu to 'undo' it, the NAME of the operation AE wants to 'undo' is... "Move Item." Not "Example UG."
(Windows 10, AE 15.0.0, Build 180)