The trajectory script will take all layers in a composition and plot them evenly on a line between 2 nulls.

Getting Started

Install the script in the scripts folder.  To run the script, simply select the layers you would like to be linked in the trajectory and select the script from the File->Scripts menu.  When the script is run, it will take all layers in the selected composition and make them 3d. It then creates 3 nulls, 2 of these nulls are used to create the trajectory along which all layers lie and the third null is a control layer which will be discussed in a moment.  The 3 nulls must be the last 3 layers in the comp, and the control layer must be the last layer in the comp.

You can move the 2 nulls named “startPosition” and “endPosition” and all the layers in your comp will disperse evenly on a line between the 2 nulls.

Add keyframes to the nulls position and the layers will follow.

Control Layer

The “controlLayer” null controls the rotation and opacity of the layers. The “Transform Delay” slider allows you to offset each layers reaction to changes in the control layer…so if you have xRotation on the controlLayer keyframed from frame 1 to 10 and offset set to 5, layer 1 will do the xRotation from frame 1 to 10; layer 2 will transform from 6 to 15; and layer 3 will transform from frame 11 to 20.

The reverse delay checkbox will cause the delay to go from last layer to first layer instead of first to last.

Check the “Disable Control” checkbox if you would like to individually controll these parameters from each layer insted of the control layer

Adding Layers to your Trajectory

If you want to add a layer from your project to a trajectory comp, simply duplicate any layer in the comp that is not a null, select the dup, and alt+drag the item and drop it on the selected layer and it will become part of the trajectory.

Using Trajectory Comp in another Comp

If you put your trajectory comp inside your main comp and enable “collapse transformations” for that layer, your trajectory comp will become part of the scene and react to cameras.

Version History

• 2.01 Blessed for CS5 and updated to run in any language not just english. Thanks to: François Cora for the French translation and Jakob Behrends for the German translation – 06/2010
• 2.0 Initial release on aescripts.com – 01/2010

Automated Versioning of your Comps

The compsFromSpreadsheet script allows you to quickly generate copies of your master comp with data from your spreadsheet used to update text or replace layers.

Getting Started

Before you can use the script you need to setup one or more template compositions to receive data from your spreadsheet. There are three different ways your template comp can be updated from the spreadsheet

• Text layers that begin with ^(shift 6) will be able to receive data from the spreadsheet as the text for that layer.
• If you have a text layer named ^date it will receive todays date (great if you’re generating slates)
• If you have a non-text layer in your comp that begins with #, it will be replaced by the project item named in your spreadsheet

If you are running the script as a dockable panel, there will be two buttons to automatically create either a text or layer object in the currently selected comp.

Setting up your Spreadsheet

The first line of your spreadsheet must contain the names for each column.
When you run the script it will take each of these column names and and allow you to connect that column with elements in your template comp.

After you do this the script will go through the spreadsheet line by line, each line of the spreadsheet will become a new copy of one of your template comps, with data from that line of the spreadsheet updating the layers in the template comp copy that were targeted to receive it.
If you have set up more than one composition to receive data, you will need to have a column in your spreadsheet that holds the name of the comp to be used as the base. In the above sample spreadsheet the column ‘Core Spot’ will be used, so when the script is run, for the first line of data it will create a copy of the comp named “spot 1″ to be used for that line.

Before After effects can read your spreadsheet, it needs to be converted into a tab-delimited text file (most spreadsheet programs do this easily). This is a universal text format that will allow After effects to read in your data and organize it by rows and columns.

When you run the script be sure to point it to this newly created text file and not your spreadsheet as After Effects cannot read any spreadsheet format (maybe I should call the script compsFromTabDelimitedTextFile).

A word about Commas

If you have commas in your data, they will probably get stripped. Why? I believe it is a bug in Excel. There are two major types of delimited text documents, tab-delimited (which we are using) and comma delimited text. If using a comma-delimited format, commas are used to separate columns, if there happens to be a comma in your data, the program will need to strip them out prior to saving as they will be falsely interpreted as the end of that column.

If saving as tab-delimited, tabs would likewise need to be stripped out from your data. Commas are fine and should not be removed, as they are NOT a separator. Sadly, Excel still strips out commas, even when you are saving as a Tab-Delimited text file.

Running the Script

compsFromSpreadsheet needs to know which comps in your project have been setup for use with the script.

When you run the script a window will pop up with all the comps in the project in the left column . Double click on the comp names that are to be used to move them to the right “selected comps” column. Click continue when you have added all the comps to be used to the “selected comps” column.

If you only have one comp this window is bypassed.

If you put all your comps in a folder called TEMPLATES the script will bypass this window and assume that the comps in that folder are to be used

Synching Column Data to your Comp

When the script reads the first line of your spreadsheet, it needs you to tell it where the data from each column should go in your comp. The Field Init window opens. Each column name from the first line of the spreadsheet appears with a dropdown box underneath.

The dropdown box links the data from that column in the spreadsheet to elements in your template comps. The dropdown box contains the names of all the layers that were set up earlier to receive data (remember, the text layers that started with ^ will receive the data from this column, and a layer with a # will be replaced with the project item named in this column.)

If a column name is the same as an element name in one of your comps, that will be automatically selected in the dropdown i.e. If you have a column in your spreadsheet “phone” and a text layer in one of your template comps named “^phone”, that item will be automatically selected in the dropdown box. If however, your text layer is “^phone number” it will not be selected in the dropdown box.

If you have more than one comp to be used you will need to have a column in your spreadsheet with the name of the comp to be used for that line. Select ‘COMP’ from the dropdown box of the column that holds comp names, if you only have comp to be used ‘COMP’ will not appear in the dropdown as the script will already know which comp to use.

Naming Comps

The next step you need to tell the script how to name the newly created sequence, and where you want the rendered sequences to go. The default naming convention is line number, so the name of the very first Comp is “2″ ( because line 1 holds the column names). and the next comp created it called “3″ and so on until it reaches the last line of the spreadsheet.

Alternately you can have the script keep the name of the original template comp and append a number to the end. so the first time the script creates a comp from “spotA” it is named “spotA_1″, next line that uses that comp will name the new comp “spotA_2″

Lastly, you can choose to get the name from one of your spreadsheet columns. So if you choose “FROM SPREADSHEET | name” from the dropdown, the comp will get its name from the ‘name’ column of the spreadsheet.

Setting Render Location

Every comp created by the script will be placed in the render que using the default settings for your render que. It will default to saving the renders in the same directory as your project. If you click the “Render Output Location” button you can select where you want the script to render your comps to.

Conclusion

The script will run through your data line by line. For each line it will create a new comp, put it in a folder called “compsFromSpreadsheet”, update any target layers in that comp with data from the current line, finally, the comp will be placed in the render que using render que defaults and set to render in the same directory as the project (unless you set a different render location in the field init window.

Hit the render button and all your newly created comps will render (go out for a pint while it renders!)

Dockable Panels

The script can either be run as a dockable panel or as a traditional script.

If run as a dockable panel, there will be buttons in the panel to create target text or layer objects to be used with the script. Clicking “Run compsFromSpreadsheet” will bring up the comp select window

If the script is run the traditional way (by accessing it through file – scripts), you will be taken to the comp select window immediately, bypassing the window shown here.

Licensing

compsFromSpreadsheet may be downloaded and used free of charge for non commercial use. If it is to be used commercially, the license is $20

Version History

• v2.12 – June 2010
  • Now arranges the field init into multiple rows if you have more that 10 fields (and that number is changeble through a “layout” button)
• v2.11 – May 2010
  • Small bug fix to new separate folder feature, now correctly places extension after frame number.
• v2.1 – May 2010
  • You can now choose to have renders go to separate folders, so if you are rendering a tiff sequence for example, each comp will be rendered to an individual folder.
• v2.01 – May 2010
  • Added file extension to output file name in render queue.
• v2.0 – May 2010
  • Added ability to insert footage items.
  • Added dockable UI.
  • Blessed for CS5.
• v1.22
  • Fixed a small bug that prevented the script from running on some non-english systems.
• v1.21
  • Fixed a bug in the program that caused the script not to run in certain situations. Previously, the script would try to create a folder called “Renders” in the same directory as your project to put your rendered files. The script no longer does this. Now there is a button in the field init window which allows you to designate a folder for renders. If you do not choose one, renders will go wherever your render que is set to put them.
• v1.2
  • The comp select window now uses scrolling lists to accommodate projects with a lot of comps. The way it works now is there is a list of all comps in the project on the left side of the window. Any comp you want to use, double click on it and it will go the the list on the right. The list on the right is all the comps to be used by the program.
  • If you create a folder called ‘TEMPLATES’ the comp select window will be bypassed and the program will assume that all the comps in this folder are to be used.
• v1.1
  • Added the ability to choose the naming convention of new comps. Previously the comp was always named the line number of the database, now you can choose if you want line number, original comp name (with an incrementing number), or sync it up with a column in your spreadsheet.
  • Fixed a bug in the new version check.The function is only supposed to run once every 10 days, but the function checked every time the script was run. This has been corrected.
• v1.0 Initial Release

I finally decided to take matters into my own hands. I used the scripting functionality in After Effects to build my own spellchecker. The script goes through the currently selected composition, and any precomp contained within and checks every text layer for proper spelling.

If a word is misspelled, the script will give you the opportunity to enter in the propper spelling or get a suggestion. The spell suggestion comes from my website. I originally had the script come up with suggestions but it was taking nearly 15 seconds per word, so I created a script on my website using perl (which gets the suggestion very quickly). When you click on the suggest button, your computer connects to my website and gives it the misspelled word. The script on my website then gives the spell check script a list of suggestions.

Please note that even though this script has a UI, it is installed in the Scripts folder not in the ScriptUI Panels folder.