Templater Rig

  • Compatibility After Effects
    Please check exact version compatibility under the "COMPATIBILITY" tab below

Author: Dataclay

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Quick Overview

New in Templater 3: Quality control tools, native MFR and Apple M1, use expressions for responsive layout and integration with Dataclay QUE. Easily customize video with an elegant and streamlined workflow solution. Available editions Templater Pro and Templater Bot extend Templater Rig for desktop automation and full server automation.

Templater Overview


 

What is Templater?

Templater turns the arduous task of customizing video content into an elegant workflow solution. Users automate AE project customization with a simple interface that transforms text, footage, and solid layers into dynamic elements. Templater is design aware, automatically adjusting dynamic elements to produce a finely crafted result just the way you like.

Purpose

Templater was made to improve the process and workflow of producing targeted video based on various external data sources. As organizations mine and store more information, they need ways of leveraging this data to create meaningful connections with customers in markets across the world. Big data can drive media content, but video producers need a way to easily insert information into custom video without tediously replacing assets.

Templater Features


 

Templater Editions

Templater is available in three separate editions—Rig, Pro, and Bot. Each ships with a specific feature set. Read our handy descriptions below to see which edition or combination of editions is right for your organization. Learn more about Templater Pro and Templater Bot on their respective catalog pages.

New in Templater 3

  • Integration with Dataclay QUE - an API to manage dynamic video data and render tasks.
  • Quality control batch output with "Spot Checks" - auto-exported still images of your dynamic comps.
  • Use expressions to build unique responsive layouts in favor of Templater's internal layout engine.
  • Support for Multi-Frame Rendering in After Effects 2022 and later.
  • Native Apple Silicon support.

How It Works

  • An effect plugin and a ScriptUI panel are installed into AE.
  • Users feed customization data into After Effects from a data source. Templater can read Google Sheets documents, JSON object arrays in text files, or tab-separated value files.
  • Users tag layers as dynamic with the custom effect and map data to those layers.
  • For each row in a spreadsheet or object in a JSON array, Templater updates each tagged layer with its mapped data.
  • Templater's layout engine automatically adjusts dynamic layers to produce a finely crafted composition that is either rendered or replicated.
  • Users take advantage of either Templater's graphical user interface or The Bot and its command line interface to achieve results.

Suggested Uses

  • Customizing television network branding graphics
  • Integrating social media content into video
  • Localizing text to be rendered into video
  • Personalizing ads and communication campaigns
  • Producing video content for e-commerce platforms
  • Producing video content for digital signage
  • Creating video slates and slideshows at live events
  • Customizing video slideshows of photo streams
  • Creating motion graphic material for video art
  • Quality assuring video templates

Templater Screencasts

Audience

Post production pros, application developers, motion designers, marketing automation gurus, web developers, artists, and anybody using After Effects as a central part of their workflow will find that Templater increases their productivity. Whether they work in television news or live event control rooms, post-production houses, or their own private studios, Templater users work smart hours rather than long hours.

This looks extraordinarily useful.

Lester Banks, fifteen year veteran instructor in computer graphics, lesterbanks.com.

Templater is relieving a major bottleneck in post workflows that want to embrace live data inputs with beautifully constructed motion graphics projects. It is not only saving people time but allowing content creators to spend more time on the story and finesse their design, allowing for a better end product.

Brady Betzel, contributing writer and reviewer for postPerpsective

This could save a huge amount of
time in customizing!

Larry Jordan, host of Digital Production BuZZ

Compare Templater Editions

Templater Rig

Templater Rig gives you the tools to prepare an After Effects project file for dynamic content. Map data to your composition layers and preview how those layers change as information from the data source is processed. You are currently viewing the Templater Rig catalog page.

Templater Pro

Templater Pro extends Templater Rig by offering desktop automation, allowing you to render or replicate batches of versioned compositions using data from your data source.

Templater Bot

Templater Bot is an enterprise solution for custom video on demand. It works as an automated system. Use it to periodically check for incoming data, pull new data in, and render video as a background process. Or use the command line interface to push data in to create new renders. Once your AE project is prepared, use Bot to customize and render it without operating the After Effects user interface. Developers can create front end applications, such as web or mobile apps, that feed data into Templater's data source, offering a collaborative, custom video content creation solution.

Key Feature Rig Pro Bot
Use a JSON-formatted text file as a data source
Use a Google Sheets document as a data source
Use a Tab-separated value file as a data source
Incorporate data from any web API into a data source
Easily swap out footage sources
Use cloud-based footage references in data source
Apply layout rules to layers
Apply timeline rules to layers
Store batch asset reference presets in project files
Preview compositions with data
Log Templater activity to file
Batch replicate compositions  
Batch render compositions  
Batch render with Adobe Media Encoder  
Custom output naming  
Switch AE projects within the data source  
Run shell scripts while Templater processes    
Command-line interface control    
Version AE projects as a background process    
Process extremely large data sources    
Which edition or combinations of editions do I need?

Reasons to use Templater Rig

  • You find that swapping content in your project files takes too much time.
  • You want to prepare an AE project file to render with a different studio machine running Templater Pro or Templater Bot
  • You want to create an AE project compatible with Templater Pro to sell or distribute it as a template.

Reasons to use Templater Pro

  • Your clients have a database of customer information, and they require a quick turnaround for many unique videos based on that data.
  • Your studio has multiple artists who need to work concurrently on different variations of a master composition.
  • You have purchased a Templater-compatible AE template and want to create many unique versions of it quickly based on data from a data source.

Reasons to use Templater Bot

  • You need an efficient way to create anywhere from 15 to 15,000+ unique videos based on a data source.
  • You want to automatically create a video based on web form input and run a script to upload it to a server.
  • You want to integrate Templater into an existing automated production pipeline.
  • You need to automatically run a script after every render job or after all render jobs are complete.

A single license of any Templater edition allows you to install and / or activate that edition on a single machine for one user. Before purchasing, you should verify that Templater will help your workflow by using it in trial mode. The trial lets you explore Templater Rig, Templater Pro and Templater Bot features with a watermark. After 30 days, all functions cease to work without a purchased license. For an additional fee, a floating license version is also available which works in conjunction with a Linux based license server. To inquire about a floating license version and server please open a support request.

Feature Descriptions

Versatile

Map your spreadsheet or JSON data directly into AE composition layers. Use Google Sheets in the cloud or tabbed-separated-value files exported from Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, or Google Sheets. You can also use a plain text file containing a JSON object array exported from your own app.

Intelligent

When updating an AE composition with your data, Templater intelligently adjusts dynamic layers relative to their containing composition and other sibling layers. No need to futz with aligning, scaling, or positioning dynamic layers—let Templater craft your composition according to your layout rules.

Timely

Use time-based rules to crop, trim, shift, and stretch layers using Templater's patent-pending Time Sculpting feature. There's no need to worry about integrating footage sources of varying duration into a video template. Now Templater can maintain the design integrity of your video while processing footage of different lengths.

Global

Insert characters from any language into your spreadsheet and see them appear in your text layers. Of course, installed fonts should have the glyphs you require. Templater reads your text as it appears in your spreadsheet, so commas, quotes, apostrophes, and new lines are accepted. Right-to-left scripts are also supported.

Iterative

With a click of a button, preview how your data-driven compositions will look prior to rendering or replicating. Iterate through previews of your render jobs to see how Templater treats different text, footage, and colors. Resolve problematic data quickly and effectively.

Efficient

Pro & Bot Only — Templater churns out many unique renders very efficiently. Choose to render all the rows in your spreadsheet or just a range. You can apply AE output modules and render settings templates to batch jobs and customize output names.

Industrious

Pro & Bot Only — Templater can quickly re-version a master composition with your data and replicate it so you can work your mograph magic on it before rendering. Replicated comps are kept tidy and organized within a clean folder structure. You also have the option to send replicated comps to AE's render queue or the Adobe Media Encoder.

Automatic

Bot Only — The Bot for Templater operates After Effects for you. When The Bot finds new data, it triggers Templater's customization and rendering process. Developers can create web or mobile apps that feed data into Templater's data source, offering a collaborative, custom video content creation solution. In addition, you can use shell scripts to automatically handle post-rendering tasks.

Powerful

Bot Only — Engage with Templater processes through shell commands. With the command line interface (CLI), developers have unparalleled flexibility for integrating video versioning within their existing pipelines or systems. Most controls found in the Templater Panel are configurable via a command line options file.

Transparent

Want to know what Templater is doing at any given time? Inspect its log files for full transparency. Troubleshooting Templater has never been easier.

Support & Services

Standard Support

Good documentation is essential for a smooth user experience. We've done our best to ensure ours is as thorough and as clear as possible. Should you encounter any problems, visit Dataclay's support site to search through our extensive online help. Learn basic concepts and follow step-by-step instructions to get started.

We also have many screencasts which you can find in the Videos tab on this page. Screencasts show many different techniques and real-world examples using existing templates. While some demonstrate with Templater 1 and 2, they are still relevant to Templater 3. Use the screencasts in combination with the documentation for the most effective learning experience.

If you have difficulty getting Templater to work for you after searching the documentation and reviewing the screencasts, we are here to help. Dataclay provides technical support via web and email to registered owners of Templater licenses through the help-ticket system here on aescripts.com. Submit a ticket with your question, and we will respond within three business days. For pre-sales questions, feel free to use the comments tab on this page.

Dataclay Consulting Services

Dataclay offers consulting services and managed solutions for studios, agencies, broadcast networks, live event producers or any company with a need to produce customized video content from AE templates. Visit our author page to contact us if your team needs help to do the following:

  • Prepare an existing After Effects project file for compatibility with Templater
  • Optimize existing templates for efficient batch rendering
  • Integrate data from your existing source for use with Templater
  • Architect rendering farms for use with Templater
  • Distribute video content after performing versioning and rendering tasks
© Copyright 2013–2022 Dataclay, LLC. All rights reserved.
  • Templater Main ScriptUI Panel
  • Templater Preferences Dialog
  • Templater Effect Settings
  • Templater Google Sheet Setup Dialog
  • Templater Data Source Types
  • Map data to comp layers
  • Dynamic layer scale factor
  • Chainging dynamic layers
  • Aligning, attaching, and nesting dynamic layers
  • Setting source footages
  • Handling output locations

Templater Screencasts

After Effects 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, CC 2019, CC 2018, CC 2017, CC 2015.3, CC 2015, CC 2014, CC, CS6, CS5.5, CS5