aescripts + aeplugins

Nicolai Grut · October 2014

What a great tool! I bought it instantly after watching the video.

I absolutely love the comp proxy feature and the placeholder tool for using comps from stock libraries. The image sequence listed as a single file feature is worth it alone...The burnin feature, the...I could go on and on

Having said that, I think I am having a few problems using it correctly. When I create a proxy it doesn't replace the file automatically, I have to manually find and replace the proxy (I know when its done as my AE window un-maximizes and goes to half size) How do I set it to automatically use the proxy when it's ready? I have "always import" checked in prefs and I am using AE CC on Windows 8.1. Thanks in advance

Christian Lett · October 2014

Hi Nicolai,

Thanks for the nice comments. The AE window un-maximising does indeed show that the background assign script has fired (by the way this is a weird bug in the Windows version of AE - it doesn't happen on Mac). The bg assign script should raise an error if there's a problem, but there may be one or two things you can check first.

1) To check that the proxy has rendered in the correct place, just hit the render button again for the particular piece of footage. If your preference for "Import Same Named Proxies" is set to "Always import a match" then qp ProxyMan should instantly set the proxy with the last rendered version of that footage.

2) In Windows Explorer, navigate to your proxy cache location, and delete any files that end in .tmp or .prx. I had an instance where an old file caused the auto import to fail (I'll be looking into this in the first bug fix release soon).

You don't have multiple copies of AE open at the same time do you? That will confuse the bg assign script.

Let me know if any of the above helps.

Christian

Nicolai Grut · October 2014

Hi Christian,

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes,hitting render once the proxy is done did instantly link it with the rendered proxy and replaced it with it in the comp! I deleted everything in the cache file but it still didn't import the next render automatically. When I tried to delete the proxy later via the remove button I got an error and then when I did it manually and then tried to re-render link by hitting render I got "null interface pointer has been de-referenced" error. Not sure if the following means anything because the script does run and render but at the beginning I get a "loadlibrary 'n' failed" error 3 times in the dos prompt.

No multiple AEs open.

Christian Lett · November 2014

Hi Nicolai,

You didn't need to delete everything in your cache - just the files with .tmp or .prx extensions. This probably explains why you got the error when you tried to remove it, since it wasn't on disk any more. The other errors you're seeing sound like internal After Effects errors. You say you're using AE CC - which version in particular? The newest implementation (CC 2014.1.1) with the blue UI or earlier? Maybe reinstalling After Effects from the CC updater might help.

Thanks, Christian

Nicolai Grut · November 2014

Thanks Christian,

I am using the latest CC 2014.1.1 Thanks for the correction. When said I deleted everything I should have said that first just deleted the .tmps and .prx files then tried deleting everything and started completely from scratch with fresh with a new project.

I Just started a new job but I may try re-installing After effects once I make my deadline. The only thing I need to figure out is the auto import, everything else is working great for me! Thanks again.

Vinay Goenka · November 2014

Thanks Christain,

Would it be possible, everything we import through qp ProxyMan get automatically copied to local drives as the source format instead of converting them?

In case of server/network issue we still be able to work and render stuffs needed.

And Also a quick proxy button which identify elements in our project, copy them directly to local and assign proxy. In case of working on old comps.

Cheers,

Vinay Goenka

woojoo kim · November 2014

Hi Christian,

I purchased script today.

But.. I have encountered error "could not convert unicode characters.(23 :: 46)"

I'm Korean, South of Korea

I'm using OSX 10.9.5 / CS6(english language)

But.. my comp name is KOREAN -> "#자막_파티클1"

I think that problem is comp name written KOREAN.

If you fix it, I'd really appreciate that.

Thanks! very good script.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v4s3uvvf19hmrih/error.png?dl=0

Christian Lett · November 2014

Hi Woojoo,

I apologise for the delay in responding (I'm away from home at the moment on a job), and am sorry you're having problems with the script. Can I confirm that the issue only happens when you're using Korean comp names, and that it is working for you in all other cases?

Thanks for the test data - I will look into this at the first opportunity I get and get in touch directly.

Christian

woojoo kim · November 2014

Thanks Christain,

It's OK

I tested comp name -> " Comp 1"

but.. An error occurred "qp proxyman error : the following problems meant that proxies could not be assigned: could not find renderd proxy files for item Comp 1"

error screen shot :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B90wIr5UluEYRU82VTBhMlA0dmM/view?usp=sharing

Project file path screen shot:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B90wIr5UluEYNWJfOGhNRXdSRHc/view?usp=sharing

Here is my all project file & proxy folder (proxy folder name is "test") zipped :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B90wIr5UluEYc0xlRGw0Rko3emM/view?usp=sharing

and..

Let me know if you need any help with any of that

Cheers

WooJoo kim

Christian Lett · November 2014

@woojoo

This sounds like the render didn't complete. Please try the following:

1) To check that the proxy has rendered in the correct place, just hit the render button again for the particular piece of footage or comp. If your preference for "Import Same Named Proxies" is set to "Always import a match" then qp ProxyMan should instantly set the proxy with the last rendered version of that footage/comp.

2) In Windows Explorer/Finder, navigate to your proxy cache location, and delete any files that end in .tmp or .prx.

Christian

Oliver Truswell · November 2014

With the trial version can I not render in the background?

Christian Lett · November 2014

Hi Oliver,

That's correct. Background rendering is only available in the full version.

Thanks, Christian

Milan Michalik · December 2014

I would like to see the same feature in the ProxyMan as Vinay Goenka.

Copying the footage (without converting) from a slow network to a local quick storage and set as a proxy.

This should be easy to implement? Or?

Christian Lett · December 2014

Hi Vinay & Milan

In theory this is quite simple, in fact it was something I attempted when I first started developing the script. However it was very slow to copy the files across. That said, there are probably better ways to do this than my early attempt, so I have logged this as a feature request and will consider it for the next release.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Christian

Jack Hsu · February 2015

Things to think about:

Error Logging:
The first batch of proxies I rendered failed half way through the que due to an error (I cant remember exactly what it was but went to the tune of "ProxyMan cant render for an unknown reason."). This stopped the BG render leaving 10 clips in the que that did not get proxied. I caught this after lunch but finding this in the morning after would be dissapointing... ProxyMan should generate an error log and skip proxy gen for clips it can't render so that batch proxy gen is consistently reliable.

Buggy qp ProxyMan Render Presets Window
When changing presets in the Preset drop down to anything but "Basic Moving Proxy" the Preset Name and settings do not accurately reflect what is selected in the drop down. An example of this would be selecting "Graphics Proxy" in the drop down show's information for "Basic Still Proxy", etc.

All for now

Jack Hsu · February 2015

More things to think about:

Proxy Saving Location
I work on a SAN environment... ProxyMan should have the ability to automatically save its proxied clips in the very least to the same location the AE project file is located. Better yet if it could auto save to specefic locations in a predefined directory structure where the AE project file happens to be.

Buggy QuickSet Panel
The auto scrolling is extremely annoying in its current form... Why is it usefull? There should be an option to globally turn off and on all proxies.

By the way I'm on Windows 7 running CC12

Christian Lett · February 2015

Hi Jack,

Thanks for reporting these bugs and feature requests. Some of these things are already on my radar (especially the Quick Set Panel issues and error reporting). I admit I don't see the Render Preset window bug you've described. Just to clarify, you're talking about the dialog box itself (when you click on Edit...)?

You can set your proxy cache to any drive. However for performance it is best to cache the proxies locally. It's interesting to hear you'd prefer to cache on a network drive.

Thanks,

Christian

Jack Hsu · February 2015

Hey Christian, thanks for your reply. It's good to hear you're thinking about this stuff! To answer your question - yes when you click the edit button... Regarding performance realtive to cache location in our case it appears we get our best performance with proxies located on our SAN and encoded as compressed TIFF sequences. This is partly due to the way we have our SAN configured at the moment... Also the local drive I was testing was an SSD which would probably not be as fast as a RAID array... I think the point is that everyone's hardware infrastructure is unique and performance always needs to be tested... Aside from our specific performance there are a couple of reasons we prefer to cache on our SAN. One is archival after a project has been completed. Another is portablility realtive to allocating human resources (Freelancer A has to move to Workstation B because of X reason, etc.). For us Having the Auto Location feature would be a huge timesaver becuase we often have situations where multiple freelancers and staffers are working on multiple jobs throughout their day. The current requirement of having to manually set the cache location will cause problems because we will all at some point forget to do it...
cheers-
j

Jack Hsu · February 2015

More Bugs:

Import and Proxy Window (ProxyMan's custom window for importing)
Force alphabetical order doesnt work
Need the ability to control the size of the window

Jack Hsu · February 2015

More Bugs:
When importing from ProxyMan window the imported image swquence get dumped into the root of the project and not into the selected folder within the project hierarchy

Christian Lett · February 2015

Hi Jack,

Thanks for reporting these. I've sent you a direct message to get in touch with more information. However I can tell you that footage will automatically import into a selected folder in the next version of the script, which I'm currently working on, along with other feature requests and bug fixes.

Andrii Shramko · April 2015

Big problem: look here

Christian Lett · April 2015

Hi Andrew. Thanks for the video. Sorry to see you're having trouble with the script. I am aware of this issue, which is unfortunately a side effect of selecting a project item via scripting. The project panel scrolls to the selected item, and not particularly fast! It's not usually a problem but when there are hundreds of items it does become an issue. I'm working on the next version of qp ProxyMan that has a solution for this problem. For now as a workaround if you twirl up the Quick Set Panel this won't happen.

Christian Lett · April 2015

@JackHsu

Buggy qp ProxyMan Render Presets Window
When changing presets in the Preset drop down to anything but "Basic Moving Proxy" the Preset Name and settings do not accurately reflect what is selected in the drop down. An example of this would be selecting "Graphics Proxy" in the drop down show's information for "Basic Still Proxy", etc.

Jack, I've been unable to replicate this bug on Windows or Mac. Is there any more information you can provide that might help me figure it out? Basically I've tried opening the Render Presets dialog using the "Edit" button on the main panel. I am able to change preset with the dropdown and the correct details for each chosen preset are displaying ok.
Cheers, Christian

Vinay Goenka · August 2015

Hi! Christian,

Would like to let you know. I'm patiently waiting for the update.

Cheers,

Vinay Goenka

Christian Lett · August 2015

Hi Vinay, the update is coming soon. Hopefully by September.

Stephan Pepi · August 2015

Hi

The Background rendering on CC 2015 dosen't work?

Cheers

Stephan

Christian Lett · August 2015

Hi Stephan,

There is an update coming soon that will enable background rendering in CC 2015.

Christian

Nicolai Grut · September 2015

I love this plugin! I finally got a chance to try out this latest version. Really nice work. If you don't have it yet, Buy it now! If you ever use proxies you need this plugin.

By the way, if anyone has a problem deleting proxies on Windows, its probably a Windows permissions issue. I had a problem deleting proxies from the button due to Windows locking my proxies folder. No matter what I did to try to set permissions Windows wouldn't let me here's the solution that worked for me: http://bit.ly/changediskpermission ;

Christian Lett · September 2015

Thanks Nicolai for the kind words!

I may try and incorporate your permissions solution into the next point upgrade. It's not something I've come across myself but thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Christian

coen bouman · October 2015

Hi Christian,

Just bought the script, I see background rendering in cc2015 isn't working? Hope the update is coming along

Kind regards,

Coen

Christian Lett · October 2015

Hi Coen,

The latest version of the script - v1.5 - works fully with the latest version of AE (CC 2015). If you bought qp ProxyMan today then your download should be v1.5. Can you tell me if the background process (Command Prompt) is starting up when you click on Make or after Import & Proxy?

Thanks,

Christian

coen bouman · October 2015

Hi Christian,

Sorry I got off track

... I studied the output of the terminal after using qp proxyman and noticed this line: /Users/coenst/Dropbox/software/ae/aerender: Command not found. I've got my scripts residing in a dropbox folder. And a symbolic link to that in the application folder so I can sync scripts between multiple machines and versions. Could that be the cause of the background process not starting up?

Thanks

Coen

Christian Lett · October 2015

Hi Coen,

Yes, this is the reason why I'm afraid. I'd not considered installing scripts anywhere other than the default location. The script uses its location to determine the paths for aerender and to trigger the auto assign once the render has completed (it's also the reason why previous versions didn't work in CC 2015). For now, can you use the script as normal and put it in your ScriptUI Panels folder, until I can come up with a viable solution for scripts stored elsewhere?

Thanks for reporting this.

Christian

coen bouman · October 2015

Hi Christian,

Good to know how to solve my problem. Great tool you made, looking forward to using it a lot

Thanks,

Coen

basem alideeb · November 2015

Hi christian,

Today I download the trial version of ProxyMan, I really like it

I want to ask if it's possible to choose a red color to the word "offline" instead of the white one , because the white color it's not clear enough on the bright background color.

Christian Lett · November 2015

Hi Basem,

I assume you're talking about the burn-ins? Good suggestion, thanks. I'll consider adding a colour picker in preferences for a future release.

Christian

basem alideeb · November 2015

Hi again Christian,

Yes that's exactly what I mean.

Thank you

basem alideeb · December 2015

Hi Christian,

Can you fix this issue ?

This is happening only if I close the AfterEffects while it's rendering in the background.

So, If I close the AfterEffects while rendering, when the render is finished, the AfterEffects will open automatically and shows that message, is there any way to prevent that happen ?

I don't want the after effects to re-open automatically if I already close it.

and one more thing, when I chose the proxy video from "Set Proxy button" nothing applied to the composition, is this is known issue ?

Thanks

Basem

Christian Lett · December 2015

Hi Basem,

The background render process automatically attempts to assign the rendered proxy to the footage when it completes. This happens by running a second script in After Effects. The downside of this is that if AE isn't open then it will launch the app. I don't think there's any way I can tell if AE isn't open from the command line so it might not be possible to change this behaviour I'm afraid. I'll look into the error though as that shouldn't happen.

Can you describe the "Set Proxy" problem a bit more, please? Do you mean that using the "Set Proxy" button isn't applying a proxy to your footage or comp?

Thanks, Christian

basem alideeb · December 2015

Hi Christian,

It would be great if you could make a "check mark" option inside the preference to let us choose either " automatically attempts proxy " or not.

You know you that will add a new great feature to your script that would be use it as a final render.

Yes, what I mean is "Set Proxy" button isn't applying a proxy to my comp?

Thanks

Basem.

Christian Lett · December 2015

Hi Basem,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable making qp ProxyMan a front end for simply background rendering, since that's what bg_renderer is for.

I'll look into your Set Proxy problem over the holidays.

Christian

basem alideeb · December 2015

Hi Christian,

Don't care about making qp ProxyMan a front end for simply background rendering, it was only an idea , but I agree with you that bg_rendereris good enough to do that.

if you want I can record a video for you to explain how "Set Proxy" button isn't applying a proxy to my comp?

Cheers,

Basem

Christian Lett · December 2015

Yes please Basem. Please send your video link to plugins *at* quarterlightpictures *dot* com.

Thanks!

Paul Levin · February 2016

Hey, I keep getting an error message when I open qp_proxyman script. It tells me "unable to execute script at line 1. undefined is not an object"

Christian Lett · February 2016

Hi Paul,

This error usually occurs because of a permissions error. Do you have permission to write files to your home folder? If you open ~/Library/Application Support/ (Mac) or <user>\AppData\Local (Win) using Finder/Explorer, can you see a Quarterlight Pictures folder, and if so is there anything in it? I'd expect to see a qp ProxyMan folder.

If neither of these folders is present then you'll have to set permissions before using the script.

Christian

Paul Levin · February 2016

Folder in library is not present. I did have to nuke my permissions earlier, Perhaps something that shouldn't have been removed was removed?

Christian Lett · March 2016

Hi Paul, Sorry for the delay in responding. It looks like the folders/files were never written. If you reinstate permissions on your home folder and re-run the script it should run properly.

Nils Andersen · April 2016

Hey Guys,

I installed ProxyMan and clicked through the intro Charts in the beginning but as soon i finished with the intro the panel did not po up. also if i try to run the script via File->Scripts->qp_proxyman the panel won't show up..

Any Idea what i did wrong or what i could try?

Thanks for any help with that.

im running the script on CC 2015 using a Mac

Christian Lett · April 2016

Hi Nils, just checking you've put the script in your Scripts/ScriptUI Panels folder, and run it from AE's "Window" menu?

aescripts + aeplugins

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