aescripts + aeplugins

adam benami

when i export from karafun in hebrew it doesnt come out right. i get this

׳׳– ׳ž׳” ׳”׳—׳™׳™׳ ׳”׳׳œ׳” ׳¨׳•׳¦׳™׳ ׳ž׳ž׳š?

׳׳•׳œ׳™ ׳”׳ ׳¨׳•׳¦׳™׳ ׳œ׳©׳˜׳•׳£ ׳׳•׳×׳š ׳‘׳ž׳™׳

instead of hebrew letters.

any idea what to do ?

Paul Tuersley

If you open the KFN file in a text editor do the subtitles look correct in there (they're at the end of the file)? Could you send me the KFN file to [email protected]

Simon Kipfer

Hello Paul

I have a Problem with the Plugin.
I did the Lyrics in the Karafun Studio and saved as KFN File.
When I import it via your plugin everything works fine except it does not add the Bouncing Ball, even though I set the Checkbox.

When I import the Lyrics via an ass File the Bouncing ball works fine, but I can't have 4 lines per screen, so this is no solution either.

Do you know what could be the problem?

Thanks a lot
Simon

Paul Tuersley

Hi Simon, Sorry for my delayed response. As long as there are karaoke highlight timings, I can only think that something is causing the script to fail at the point where it would normally create the bouncing ball. If you email me your KFN file and resulting project to [email protected] I'll take a look.

As for 4 lines in an .ass file, is that a restriction in the markup program? (i.e. aegisub). Using \N or \n in the body of the text should create line returns, but I wasn't aware there was a limit.

Paul

Christopher Barrett

I'm trying to register and log in over at AE Enhancers.  It accepted my registration, and said I have to wait for approval.  But it never comes.  What's going on over there?  If I try to log in it says I'm inactive.  Why don't guys set up auto-email activation like everyone else? Could you please activate me.  

Paul Tuersley

Hi Christopher, firstly AE Enhancers is not related to aescripts.com, although I am a moderator on that site. I got in touch with the site owner about this but he can't do much without knowing your username. Please contact him directly at [email protected]. The site doesn't have auto activation because of the huge amount of spam that causes.

Paul

Christopher Barrett

Thanks, I didn't want to leave it here, but I couldn't find anyone to email on that site.

It says contact moderators, but there is no easy way to do that.  They need to provide an obvious way to do that.

Go ahead and delete my posts here if you want.

Bug Menot

I am currently using v3.11 trial with Adobe After Effects cc.

It seems like the bouncing ball and text crawl functions do not work with it.

Is it because I am using a trial mode or is this a compatibility issue?

Looking forward to your answer.

Paul Tuersley

It was a compatibility issue with AE CC. I've just released a v3.12 update that fixes the problem.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

basem alideeb

Actually I want to buy it but I don't know how to use it !

Can you make more tutorials to make it more clear for us ?

Paul Tuersley

There's a demo video on the script page and also a pdf guide that comes with the script (including the trial version) for how to create your own animation presets. Have you tried the trial version? What areas are you having problems with?

basem alideeb

There's a demo video on the script page and also a pdf guide that comes with the script (including the trial version) for how to create your own animation presets. Have you tried the trial version? What areas are you having problems with?

I don't know how to apply the effects on my text ..

and also I don't understand what is "import karaoke" ?

I tried the trial version and I watched the video tutorial .. the video was explain about the presets of this script , but I need more explain about how to  apply the effects on my text ..

Paul Tuersley

SSAKaraokeAnimator works by importing karaoke text and timing information from files in the SSA file format, for which you'd use a karaoke authoring application such as Aegisub to input the text and set the karaoke timings. You choose the animation style you want to use, select the SSA file to import and the script creates the karaoke text with animations to highlight each word/syllable as they're supposed to be sung.

Could you explain a bit about what you're trying to do?

basem alideeb

SSAKaraokeAnimator works by importing karaoke text and timing information from files in the SSA file format, for which you'd use a karaoke authoring application such as Aegisub to input the text and set the karaoke timings. You choose the animation style you want to use, select the SSA file to import and the script creates the karaoke text with animations to highlight each word/syllable as they're supposed to be sung.

Could you explain a bit about what you're trying to do?

Okay that's clear , but my idea was why you don't make an option to the script to make the effects available to apply on my texts without need to import anything ?

Paul Tuersley

That is an interesting idea and it is something I've thought about. It would mean coming up with some way to mark out the timings for the word/syllable highlighting in AE. Maybe it could be that you add layer markers at the correct times, then insert a special character like * between the words/syllables in the text. Or it could assume each space is a separator and you'd only need a * if you want to break a word into multiple syllables.

The script would then just go through matching up each layer marker to each space / special character.

Any more thoughts anyone has on this are welcome. Supporting timing markup inside of AE is certainly something I'll consider for a future version.

basem alideeb

I tried Aegisub program but the problem was every time I tried to import karaoke it says "No karaoke timings were found in the imported file."

is that happen because I use the trial version ?

I use AE CC

Paul Tuersley

In my demo video at 13 mins I give a quick example of using Aegisub to mark up the karaoke timings. When done correctly, the subtitle text will end up containing information in the format {\k30} which denotes the duration of each word/syllable. If you simply create subtitle lines with a start and end point but no word/syllable timing information you will get that error as there's nothing to time the animation to.

basem alideeb

In my demo video at 13 mins I give a quick example of using Aegisub to mark up the karaoke timings. When done correctly, the subtitle text will end up containing information in the format {\k30} which denotes the duration of each word/syllable. If you simply create subtitle lines with a start and end point but no word/syllable timing information you will get that error as there's nothing to time the animation to.

pleas can you make a tutorial how to avoid this error ?

I like your script , I want to buy it , but I still don't know how to use it correctly .. 

thanks paul for your help 

Paul Tuersley

Have you tried doing what I do in the demo video (at the 13 min mark) where I time out a line in Aegisub? After adding a line and setting the start/end times you choose the Karaoke option to split the line into timed words, correct the timing then click something like a Commit button, at which point the {\k30} style timings are added to the text, then just export the SSA file.

I'm not that familiar with Aegisub myself and just played with it for a few hours before making that tutorial. There's not much I can add beyond what's in that video but you could always try looking on youtube for other Aegisub tutorials.

I'd encourage you to carefully follow what I do in the video and try to replicate it in Aegisub. If you're able to create subtitles with start/end times and that Aegisub has added {\k30} info into the text then it should import into SSAKaraokeAnimator ok.

basem alideeb

Have you tried doing what I do in the demo video (at the 13 min mark) where I time out a line in Aegisub? After adding a line and setting the start/end times you choose the Karaoke option to split the line into timed words, correct the timing then click something like a Commit button, at which point the {\k30} style timings are added to the text, then just export the SSA file.

I'm not that familiar with Aegisub myself and just played with it for a few hours before making that tutorial. There's not much I can add beyond what's in that video but you could always try looking on youtube for other Aegisub tutorials.

I'd encourage you to carefully follow what I do in the video and try to replicate it in Aegisub. If you're able to create subtitles with start/end times and that Aegisub has added {\k30} info into the text then it should import into SSAKaraokeAnimator ok.

Thanks paul for your support .. 

I will solve my problem in karaoke

then I will buy your script

basem alideeb

Hi Paul .. 

could you please check this link below , its a video recording about my problem

http://www.mediafire.com/?qn9if8h2ngko361

Paul Tuersley

Admittedly the UI is slightly different in the latest version of Aegisub. You need to enable Karaoke mode by clicking the icon on the far right under the audio waveform. A strip will then appear below it where you can choose how the words/syllables are split. Click to split a word in two, Cmd-click to remove a split point. Use the icons on the left (below the waveform) to check each word duration, dragging the dotted lines on the waveform to adjust the timings. Click the green tick in the strip below to commit the changes. You can continue to adjust the timings after, clicking the green tick icon in the middle of the row of icons to commit those changes.

You'll see the timing info is then added to the text, looking like {\k30}. Export the file and view in a text editor to confirm those duration tags are included. Then import using pt_SSAKaraokeAnimator.

basem alideeb

Admittedly the UI is slightly different in the latest version of Aegisub. You need to enable Karaoke mode by clicking the icon on the far right under the audio waveform. A strip will then appear below it where you can choose how the words/syllables are split. Click to split a word in two, Cmd-click to remove a split point. Use the icons on the left (below the waveform) to check each word duration, dragging the dotted lines on the waveform to adjust the timings. Click the green tick in the strip below to commit the changes. You can continue to adjust the timings after, clicking the green tick icon in the middle of the row of icons to commit those changes.

You'll see the timing info is then added to the text, looking like {\k30}. Export the file and view in a text editor to confirm those duration tags are included. Then import using pt_SSAKaraokeAnimator.

thanks paul ,,

I will try to follow your instructions , then I well come back here to buy your script

Alu Card

Paul, does your script allow to create starting and ending transitions(meaning the way the text appear and disappear)?

Paul Tuersley

Hi Alu, It doesn't really allow for start/end transitions. You can set it to fade in/out. Also, you could potentially design an animation preset that includes a transition in, highlight, then transition out, but the in/out transitions wouldn't be synchronised across all the text in that page of subtitles, they would be centered around the highlight time of each syllable. Having said that, it might be possible to include expressions on certain properties (in the animation preset) that would retime the keyframed values to fit the in/out points of each text layer.

What level of control or kind of transitions would you like to have? Are you more interested in limited controls like with the fast presets, or using custom animation presets? It could be tricky to allow custom animation presets for this while ensuring they don't conflict with the highlight effect.

Paul

Alu Card

Hi Alu, It doesn't really allow for start/end transitions. You can set it to fade in/out. Also, you could potentially design an animation preset that includes a transition in, highlight, then transition out, but the in/out transitions wouldn't be synchronised across all the text in that page of subtitles, they would be centered around the highlight time of each syllable. Having said that, it might be possible to include expressions on certain properties (in the animation preset) that would retime the keyframed values to fit the in/out points of each text layer.What level of control or kind of transitions would you like to have? Are you more interested in limited controls like with the fast presets, or using custom animation presets? It could be tricky to allow custom animation presets for this while ensuring they don't conflict with the highlight effect.Paul

Thanks for the reply Paul, yes I would prefer custom animation presets if possible. Although I'm not much of programmer, I think you could calculate how fast the transitions would go in end out depending on the k-timing of the first and last syllable as well as the sentence timing.

Paul Tuersley

Hi Alu, I think it would be tricky doing something with multiple animation presets for in/out/highlight and trying to figure out the timings. But I've been playing with my idea of using expressions with animation presets to include in/out transitions along with the highlight effects. It seem to work well and should be very flexible. Here's an example animation preset (works in CS3 or later):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4emocssmsfpcomk/Jump with Transition.ffx.zip

To get this to work you should also set the fade in/out to something like 5-10 frames in order to get some extra time before and after the sentence timing for the transitions. That wouldn't be necessary if you allowed for those holds in the k-timing, which would mean starting the sentence timing early and having a k-time duration with no text as the first entry, and doing the same at the end (or at least having the end time later than the last k-time duration.

Check out the pdf guide included with the script to learn how to create your own animation presets, and copy/adapt the expressions contained in this preset to use in your own. Let me know what you think.

Paul

Sergio González

Hi Paul, related to what Alu Card commented, I'd also like to know how to do the in/out transitions. I've checked the example you've linked about making transitions, but it doesn't really convince me (the syllable is played when it's still doing the in transition). As I see, the in/out transitions aren't defined like in the KRK script. I've already used that script and his keymarker system (Start -> [) (End -> ]) and I wonder if your script allows to do something similar to KRK's keymarker system that separates the highlight effects and the transition effects.

Thanks in advance.

Paul Tuersley

Hi Sergio, In the animation preset example I set the transition length to 10 frames in the expressions. So if you set the Fade In/Out values to 10 frames or greater, the transition will finish before the first syllable is highlighted. Admittedly it would be nice to be able to change the transition length without having to create a new preset, and to add time before/after the sentence timing without it also including a fade. These are things that could be relatively easy to implement, but I need to get feedback first to decide the best course of action.

I'm not really familiar with the KRK script but I imagine it works in quite a different way. SSAKaraokeAnimator is designed to be super easy to use if you just want basic effects while still having the flexibility to create custom effects using AE's built-in Animation Presets system.

Paul

Paul Tuersley

A question for both of you or anyone else that would like to comment. I've done some work on this system of including transitions in the animation presets. Would it be enough for you to choose between either a Fade in/out duration or a Hold in/out duration and for the transition timings to match these, or would you like an additional separate Transition in/out duration too? That would mean you could for example set a 15 frame hold at the start with the first 10 frames used for the transition (i.e. 10 frame transition, then 5 frame hold before first syllable highlights).

Alu Card

A question for both of you or anyone else that would like to comment. I've done some work on this system of including transitions in the animation presets. Would it be enough for you to choose between either a Fade in/out duration or a Hold in/out duration and for the transition timings to match these, or would you like an additional separate Transition in/out duration too? That would mean you could for example set a 15 frame hold at the start with the first 10 frames used for the transition (i.e. 10 frame transition, then 5 frame hold before first syllable highlights).

Could you also add the option for the transition to be per syllable?(i.e. syllable rotating and moving to its position and other syllables follow up next http://i.imgur.com/uF4nGQc.png)

Paul Tuersley

Could you also add the option for the transition to be per syllable?(i.e. syllable rotating and moving to its position and other syllables follow up next http://i.imgur.com/uF4nGQc.png)

You can already do that with the existing system. You can include the transition as part of your animation preset and use the Time Offset feature to make the animation start earlier than the highlight, so each syllable will transition in at a separate time, relative to the highlight timing. But the addition of being able to specify a hold at start/end will help this by ensuring the transition animations don't get cut off outside of the regular sentence timing.

Sergio González

A question for both of you or anyone else that would like to comment. I've done some work on this system of including transitions in the animation presets. Would it be enough for you to choose between either a Fade in/out duration or a Hold in/out duration and for the transition timings to match these, or would you like an additional separate Transition in/out duration too? That would mean you could for example set a 15 frame hold at the start with the first 10 frames used for the transition (i.e. 10 frame transition, then 5 frame hold before first syllable highlights).

Hi Paul, thanks for the support you're giving. About the in/out transition topic we were talking about, maybe it could be better if the transition had a percentage system that calculates the time between lines and assign it a value depending of this interval. This way the transition would be automated depending on how long the interval is. Related that you asked us, I would choose the second option "(i.e. 10 frame transition, then 5 frame hold before first syllable highlights)".

Paul Tuersley

Hi Paul, thanks for the support you're giving. About the in/out transition topic we were talking about, maybe it could be better if the transition had a percentage system that calculates the time between lines and assign it a value depending of this interval.

I'll look into how complex that would be to implement, but I understand why you might not want transitions overlapping the main sentence timings of other lines. What about the situations where there's little or no time between lines. Wouldn't the transitions start to look odd if they happened too quickly in those cases? With my example where the transition sent the text whizzing off to the side I wouldn't think it mattered if they overlapped. So maybe we should simply have a checkbox to choose whether or not to scale the transition durations based on the gaps.

It would be helpful if you have some ideas for the kinds of transitions you'd like to be possible. Maybe I'll include them as presets.

Thinking about it, it would be a shame if these couldn't be mixed and matched with different highlight presets, but them this would mean having them as separate presets and having yet another dropdown menu to select them from. I was hoping to avoid adding too much more UI but maybe it does need a separate transitions UI section. One thing worth mentioning is that these will only work in conjunction with the Animation Presets system. With the Fast Presets all subtitles are created on a single text layer which is incompatible with the transitions concept.

Alu Card

You can already do that with the existing system. You can include the transition as part of your animation preset and use the Time Offset feature to make the animation start earlier than the highlight, so each syllable will transition in at a separate time, relative to the highlight timing. But the addition of being able to specify a hold at start/end will help this by ensuring the transition animations don't get cut off outside of the regular sentence timing.

Can you show me an example on how to do it? Thanks for the awesome support Paul

Paul Tuersley

Here's an example of a staggered transistion per syllable preset. Turn off "Lock speed to syllable duration", set Time Offset to -35 and set both Fade In/Out to 50 frames.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rsd6tobvvkhn6ja/Jump Staggered Transition.ffx.zip

You simply include the transition keyframes either side of the highlight animation in your animation preset. Setting large values for Fade In/Out is to extend the layer in/out points sufficiently to include the transitions. You may still need Opacity keyframes as part of your transitions to make them appear/disappear when the transitions actually start/end as I've done in this example.

Andrew Gordon

Hi,

I am new to After Effects so bear with me!  I have purchased your great product and would like to use it to produce bouncing ball lyrics to make a lyric video to accompany a charity concert performance in 4 days time! I've entered all the lyrics for our music in Aegisub having followed your instructions. 

When I try the previews in After Effects (or load my own .ass file) the text is not centred horizontally on the screen.  It sits to the right (vertically centre) so some words drop off the right hand side of the screen.

I would like each line to centred horizontally in the composition near the top.

Please could you also explain how I can change the bouncing ball colour to red?

Many thanks

Paul Tuersley

Hi Andrew, The easiest way to get the text set correctly is, before doing an import, select Layer > New > Text (from the main AE menu) and enter some dummy text, then open the Paragraph and Character panels from the Window menu and set the size, font as you want. To make it centered text, select the second icon at the top of the Paragraph panel. You can't do these changes after import, you must set them up then import again.

To make the bouncing ball red, after doing the import select the Bouncing Ball layer and choose Layer > Solid Settings (from the AE menu) and set the color there.

You can't specify that the text is at the top of the comp. The easiest way to do this is, after import, place the subtitle comp into another comp and reposition it in that second comp.

Andrew Gordon

Hi Paul.  Thank you for your super fast reply!  I have just followed your instructions and I have the text centred on the screen and I have a red bouncing ball.  The karoake video now looks awesome.  Thank you very much for your assistance. 

Andrew Gordon

Hi Paul.  We had our charity concert last week and the karaoke video with the bouncing ball went down really well.  Thanks again for helping me do this. The concert raised over £1,300 for Alzheimer's Society. Here's a link to the performance video so you (and others) can see what we achieved with your software.  Merry Christmas!  

Paul Tuersley

Hi Andrew. Glad it worked out ok. Thanks for posting the vid. It's always good to see what people are using it for.

Dan Manata

Hello, Paul. I hope you're well. I recently purchased pt_SSAKaraokeAnimator and overall I am very pleased at the ease of its use and the final product. However, I am having a strange issue. On some lines that go past two line breaks, the bouncing ball will continue along a path horizontally as if the line continued without the line break. The correct amount of bounces are there, just in the wrong place. I'm hoping it's something simple that I overlooked (which is entirely possible!). Is there any way you could possible shed some light on this situation? 

Thanks!

EDIT: Oh yeah, I should mention that I am running OSX 10.9 and using Aegisub 3.0.4 to create the word data going into AE CC.

Paul Tuersley

Hi Dan, This sounds like a bug. If you can send me a copy of the subtitle file you're importing along with the resulting project, I'll take a look. Send to [email protected]

Dan Manata

On its way, thank you!

Dan Manata

Meant to follow up earlier, but that sooooo didn't happen. Did you get the file?

Paul Tuersley

Hi Dan, Yes I got the files and have started working on a fix. It's caused by the \N line return placement. You have some line returns in their own zero duration syllables and also some line returns at the start of a syllable, neither of which it currently handles properly as I've never seen it done that way before.

For now, you can tweak your subtitle file by opening it in a text editor and:

Search for all cases of "{\k0}\N" and remove the "{\k0}" part. i.e. search/replace {\k0}\N with \N

Then search for cases of "}\N" and move the \N to the end of the syllable before.

Dan Manata

Fantastic news. I will go through the file and pull the offending markup. Leave it up to me to do something out of the ordinary that breaks something else. I'm working on another project today, but I once I run through the file make my tweaks I'll keep you updated. Thank you very much, Paul.

Dan Manata

Hey, Paul. I preformed the tweaks you suggested and unfortunately while it's not behaving the same, it's out of sync in a different manner.

Dan Manata

Ooookay, posted too soon. User error - double checked and redid with the apparently mislabeled file. That seems to have cleared up the issue.

Umer Zafar

Somehow the script is giving me error to check  the "enable scripts to write files and access network" option in general tab. Its checked. I am using after effects version cs6 on windows 8. what can be wrong. ?? I have checked the prefs folder for any read only rights, they are ok. anything else I should do? please help.