Try running the script again, it should work. It's a weird bug I am working on resolving (only seems to affect cc2019). It should launch if you try again
I notice in your path you have a Modern folder inside a Modern folder. Are you sure it's not just one Modern folder?
If this is truly the correct path, can you send me the project, text file (and only the wav file thats not working, no need to send any other files).
Thank you Michael for the time and responses. I'd like to continue this discussion but I'm too busy trying to eat my own foot, which is currently very much stuck in my mouth.
PS. Yea it shoulda only been a single modern folder in the path...
PPS. This script you've built for compsfromspreadsheet, is AWESOME! Thank you for all the work and this awesome tool!
I notice in your path you have a Modern folder inside a Modern folder. Are you sure it's not just one Modern folder?
If this is truly the correct path, can you send me the project, text file (and only the wav file thats not working, no need to send any other files).
Thank you Michael for the time and responses. I'd like to continue this discussion but I'm too busy trying to eat my own foot, which is currently very much stuck in my mouth.
PS. Yea it shoulda only been a single modern folder in the path...
PPS. This script you've built for compsfromspreadsheet, is AWESOME! Thank you for all the work and this awesome tool!
This script looks tremendous! Question - I downloaded the demo and I wondered if you have a version of the AE demo project that is compatible with After Effects version 14.x (CC 2017)? At my workplace we're prevented from upgrading our software packages and I am currently stuck in AE 14.
If not, CompsFromSpreadsheet 5 will work with CC 2017, correct? I'd just have to build my After Effects comps from scratch, yes?
This script looks tremendous! Question - I downloaded the demo and I wondered if you have a version of the AE demo project that is compatible with After Effects version 14.x (CC 2017)? At my workplace we're prevented from upgrading our software packages and I am currently stuck in AE 14.
If not, CompsFromSpreadsheet 5 will work with CC 2017, correct? I'd just have to build my After Effects comps from scratch, yes?
Thanks,
Jason
Hi Jason,
The script will work in 2014 and 2017. Here's an older sample project you can play with.
Hi. I am working on an Awards Show package. I'll have nearly 200 nominee graphics plates to create, from 4 templates (Compositions). Each has 3 Text layers. My client gave me a spreadsheet which contains all 200 nominees and info: 4 columns:
Clip Name (what the deliverable animation file should be named)
Category Name
Nominee Name
Nominees Company's Name
I watched your tutorial and CompsFromSpreadsheet 5 seems to do exactly what I need. An important challenge for me is to be able to have each rendered clip named as per the Clip Name on the spread sheet. Can CompsFromSpreadsheet 5 do this?
Hi. I am working on an Awards Show package. I'll have nearly 200 nominee graphics plates to create, from 4 templates (Compositions). Each has 3 Text layers. My client gave me a spreadsheet which contains all 200 nominees and info: 4 columns:
Clip Name (what the deliverable animation file should be named)
Category Name
Nominee Name
Nominees Company's Name
I watched your tutorial and CompsFromSpreadsheet 5 seems to do exactly what I need. An important challenge for me is to be able to have each rendered clip named as per the Clip Name on the spread sheet. Can CompsFromSpreadsheet 5 do this?
Fingers crossed,
Matt
Hi Matt,
Yes, you can definitely do this. When you run the script and select your data file to be used, the Field Init window pops up.
at the bottom of that window there's a section "New Composition Name" if you click on the dropdown you will see "FROM SPREADSHEET | [column name...which in this case is Clip Name]" select this and all comps will be named the value of this column from the spreadsheet.
You can download a fully functional demo from aescripts to make sure it works exactly as needed.
Hi I had a question about the feature that lengthens the composition with ~
It works great for getting the right composition length.
It doesn't seem to lengthen or time stretch my pre-comp that is contained within my main composition and I'm not sure why. Will it only lengthen and stretch layers and not precomps?
After changing the render path settings (Processing tab > Change Render Settings > Change Render Folder) is it possible to revert back to just rendering into the folder of the current project? I changed the render path and decided that I did not like using the path I had defined, but now I cannot find a way to go back. I tried the "Restore Defaults" button, and while that does restore many settings it keeps the render path I defined. I really need to get back to just rendering in the project folder by default, since I have several projects and need to keep the renders separated. Manually changing the output every time the best I can do for now. Is there a way to reset this?
For the past few years, my renders have landed in the same folder as my project, which was fine. Recently, for some reason, I decided to experiment with the CompsFromSpreadsheet settings, and on the Processing tab > Change Render Settings > Change Render Folder I changed the render path and saved the settings. I decided that I did not like using the path I had defined, but now I cannot find a way to resume just rendering to the path of the current project. I tried the "Restore Defaults" button, and while that does restore many settings it keeps the render path I defined. I really need to get back to just rendering in the project folder by default, since I have several projects and need to keep the renders separated. Manually changing the output every time is a hassle that I didn't have to deal with before. Is there a way to reset this?
Hi Ike,
Well that's no good, I'll have to fix that in the next update. In the meantime, you can manually clear the setting. Open the ae preference file (to find it, go to Preferences->General, at the bottom there's a button "Reveal preferences".
close after effeccts
open the pref file and look for
["Settings_compsFromSpreadsheet"]
underneath that you will see a line "renderFolder" =...
remove that entire line, save and you should be back to normal
Well that's no good, I'll have to fix that in the next update. In the meantime, you can manually clear the setting. Open the ae preference file (to find it, go to Preferences->General, at the bottom there's a button "Reveal preferences".
close after effeccts
open the pref file and look for
["Settings_compsFromSpreadsheet"]
underneath that you will see a line "renderFolder" =...
remove that entire line, save and you should be back to normal
That worked like a charm. Thanks Michael!
And thanks for this script - I've used it daily since 2014. Love it.
you need a column to tell the script which comp in your project to update.
If you are using a comp named comp1 create a column in your spreadsheet named Comp and write comp1 as the value for all the lines that are being based on comp1
you need a column to tell the script which comp in your project to update.
If you are using a comp named comp1 create a column in your spreadsheet named Comp and write comp1 as the value for all the lines that are being based on comp1
That is weird, last week, I didn't need it. I will try that, thanks.
if you only have 1 comp in your project, the script will assume that's the one you are updating. If you have more than one comp in the project, you need to tell the script which one to use
Hi there! I'm very excited to use CompsFromSpreadsheet for an upcoming project, but there's one problem I can't overcome.
When importing text from my spreadsheet, sometimes the text is short and sometimes long. I'm trying to figure out how to have the text layer automatically scale (or automatically adjust font size) so the resulting text layer is always the same width in every generated comp. I know this isn't a CompsFromSpreadsheet issue per se, but I'm guessing other people using CompsFromSpreadsheet have had to battle this issue in the past.
I've tried using this expression to have the layer resize automatically. Sadly, the expression yields some pretty wacky, unreliable results.
I searched all over and couldn't find anything related to this, so I hope I'm not repeating something.
When I create the multiple text layers using the spreadsheet, it is putting quotation marks around the text in my After Effects project. All of the punctuation and spelling is correct, but I do not want quotation marks (" ") around the text. Am I doing something wrong? I'm on a 2016, 15 inch MBP running Catalina 10.15.1 on the latest version of Adobe CC & AE 17.
This is definitely not normal behavior. Do me a favor and open a support ticket through aescripts and I'll work with you to get it functioning properly.
This is definitely not normal behavior. Do me a favor and open a support ticket through aescripts and I'll work with you to get it functioning properly.
I ended up figuring it out. I had copied text from a website and pasted into Excel. In Excel, there were no quotes around my text, but once I saved it as a .txt file (tab-delineated, of course) all of a sudden there were quotes around everything that had been copied from a web page but not around the text that I had typed out myself. Weird quirk with websites/excel/.txt files I guess. I ended up doing a find and replace in TextEdit to get rid of the quotes.
Is there a way to define a different color for a few words within a sentence? Kind of like:
This is my fancy <font color="#ffccoo">sentence.</font>
Thanks.
Unfortunately no. When After Effects replaces text via scripting, all the text will become the font, weight, size, and color of the first character of the original text.
I have some .time expressions and .outPoint expressions because I was hoping to dynamically change the timing of certain asset in points depending on the length of other assets. However when I run the script the expressions seem to be using the original template timing instead of the updated assets in my new comps. I’m using the # to bring in the updated assets. Have you ever come across this situation and if yes how was it resolved?
Update: I did some more experimenting and actually found that I just need to adjust my expressions by using soure.duration to determine timing of assets.
Under certain circumstances I need to run the script 10 + times before I'm totally happy with how my template is working with the data file, tweaking little things as I go. The challenge I have is that every time I go to run the script I have to click through dialog boxes, asking me if I want the work done in a copy of the project, etc.
What would make things even better is if there were some checkboxes in the UI panel (or settings panel) so that I could indicate if I want a particular warning to show or not. Also, it would be great if I could indicate the location of the data file once and have this location saved in the UI panel, so that if I click to run the script many times, I don't have to select the data file every time.
Great script. As you can probably tell I use it a lot. It makes a huge difference in my workflow and makes it possible to produce high quantities of videos fast and cheap for my clients.
I'm really excited about this script, but before I buy it I need to ask you something I haven't been able to find here on the comment section or the videos.
Does this script preserve the animation applied to an asset and/or text format of the Template comp? For example, if I did some animation to a png asset, keyframing some positions, opacity changes, etc... would the script preserve that animation on the new comps while updating those assets?
I'm really excited about this script, but before I buy it I need to ask you something I haven't been able to find here on the comment section or the videos.
Does this script preserve the animation applied to an asset and/or text format of the Template comp? For example, if I did some animation to a png asset, keyframing some positions, opacity changes, etc... would the script preserve that animation on the new comps while updating those assets?
Thank you very much!
Hi Laia,
It definitely does. You can download a fully functional copy of the script for seven days to test if it meets your needs.
One thing is how can I add punctuation to the end of a custom field? say I want it to be Hi ^FirstName and then have a comma.
Is there a way to do that without a field merge in excel?
Hi David,
Not 100% sure I am undersatnding what you need. If you just want a comma after the name you can just do it in the excel field...but don't use a comma as it will cause issues when you convert to tab delimited text, instead use <c> and the script will replace it with a comma.
One thing is how can I add punctuation to the end of a custom field? say I want it to be Hi ^FirstName and then have a comma.
Is there a way to do that without a field merge in excel?
Hi David,
Not 100% sure I am undersatnding what you need. If you just want a comma after the name you can just do it in the excel field...but don't use a comma as it will cause issues when you convert to tab delimited text, instead use <c> and the script will replace it with a comma.
Let me know if this isn't what you were asking.
Yes, thats what I was asking. So its has to be done in the excel sheet?
When I make updates in my spreadsheet file, they don't update in after effects. Is there something I am doing wrong?
Thanks
Hi Chris,
The way the script works is, you create the spreadsheet file, run the script and point it to the text file you made from your spreadsheet and the new comps are made in your project.
At that point it is done; there is no dynamic link to your spreadsheet, if you make a change in the spreadsheet, nothing changes in your project. If you want to make new comps from your modified spreadsheet you would need to run the script again (which generates new comps and does nothing to the comps created from your previous run.)
Any idea why the audio track won't import?
All Images & Footage are working correctly on the same sheet & project.
Hi Patrick,
I notice in your path you have a Modern folder inside a Modern folder. Are you sure it's not just one Modern folder?
If this is truly the correct path, can you send me the project, text file (and only the wav file thats not working, no need to send any other files).
That worked like a charm. Thanks Michael!
And thanks for this script - I've used it daily since 2014. Love it.