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:

position

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 arrays:

[position[1], position[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."