aescripts + aeplugins

Jimi Hendrix · September 2020

Looks cool... Can I execute not native AE stuff too like Red Giant for example? or trigger clicks of other plugins?

Onder Kadagan · September 2020

An awesome and powerful tool. I was waiting for this tool for a long time.

I watched it the tutorial but its too complicated using.

Can you make a more understandable UI design like TreeView to understand the connections?

For inspirations, you can look at this website's left side. https://scriptui.joonas.me/

Best regards

Alon Shemer · September 2020

Onder Kadagan said:

An awesome and powerful tool. I was waiting for this tool for a long time.
I watched it the tutorial but its too complicated using.
Can you make a more understandable UI design like TreeView to understand the connections?
For inspirations, you can look at this website's left side. https://scriptui.joonas.me/

Best regards

Thank you very much!
The UI can look intimidating at first but after you get used to it, it’s very fast and fluid.
There is also a trial version, so you can give it a try.
I will look into making the connections more understandable in the coming updates.

Alon Shemer · September 2020

Jimi Hendrix said:

Looks cool... Can I execute not native AE stuff too like Red Giant for example? or trigger clicks of other plugins?

Automation Toolkit can add effects (also third party effects) and manipulate their settings.

Cat George · September 2020

I was in the beta of this script and saw it growing from update to update. I'm sure it will become BIG. It took me about an hour to completely understand the UI and the creation process, and then I was able to create many automations.

These automations completely eliminated a lot of tedious work that I have to do every day in After Effects, and replaced them with one button.

For example: in my company, when starting a project, we have a very specific way to organize the project and the timeline. I've managed to create a button that does it automatically, which really sped up the process.

I recommend Automation Toolkit to everyone who uses After Effects on a regular basis, and I'm looking forward to see it keep growing and expanding!

Jimi Hendrix · September 2020

Alon Shemer said:

Jimi Hendrix said:

Looks cool... Can I execute not native AE stuff too like Red Giant for example? or trigger clicks of other plugins?

Automation Toolkit can only add effects (also third party effects), but unfortunately can't manipulate their settings at the moment.
Because it's a highly requested feature, I will try to add this functionality too.

That would be amazing. I think also what might make this super cool is the ability to run scripts.(maybe this is possible by using menu?) I use the interface to do some things then run an outside script of my own.... Keep working on this... looks promising!

Alon Shemer · September 2020

Jimi Hendrix said:

Alon Shemer said:

Jimi Hendrix said:

Looks cool... Can I execute not native AE stuff too like Red Giant for example? or trigger clicks of other plugins?

Automation Toolkit can only add effects (also third party effects), but unfortunately can't manipulate their settings at the moment.
Because it's a highly requested feature, I will try to add this functionality too.

That would be amazing. I think also what might make this super cool is the ability to run scripts.(maybe this is possible by using menu?) I use the interface to do some things then run an outside script of my own.... Keep working on this... looks promising!

You are right, this is possible to run other scripts with the action "menu command" , you just have to type your script's name with the .jsx at the end.
make sure the script is saved inside your after effects/scripts folder.
if you made your own custom script you could change it to run without a UI so it will run with just one click!
Thanks for the encouraging response

Craig Kuehne · September 2020

I can’t tell if there a way to alter the settings of a composition? And if not, is that something that you can implement, and plan on implementing. Thank you!

Alon Shemer · September 2020

Craig Kuehne said:

I can’t tell if there a way to alter the settings of a composition? And if not, is that something that you can implement, and plan on implementing. Thank you!

Hi Craig Kuehne,
There is a way to do this and it's very simple(only 4 lines).
you can create new composition or use existing composition.
for using existing composition:
first you have to find the composition by it's name or check if the selected item is composition.
there is a lot of ways that you can choose what items you want to change the settings for.
after this you can change the name, parent folder, selection, label, height, width, duration, frame rate, time indicator, and if the motion blur is on/off.

You have to use a "loop" line with the option "items in the project" (items is also refers to compositions).
the loop will loop through all the items in the project panel.
inside the "loop" you should add an "if", then set it to "name" or "is selected", if you set it to "name" type the name of the composition you want to change, if you set "is selected" then select true to check if the item is selected.
(optional) add a new "if" line inside the "if" and set it to "item type" and then composition (to check if the selected item is a composition).
add a new line inside the "if" and change it to "set", now you can set one of the properties I mentioned.
you can add more "set" lines to change more properties.

from this example you can change many settings of all the selected compositions in the project panel.

I attached this example as automation file so you can load and examine yourself(make sure you unzip the file).

BRANDON NANKIVELL · September 2020

This has me extremely excited as I run a production company and am always looking for ways to make the process more efficient. Just one automation can save crazy amounts of time and $$$.

I'd love to see more suggestions for application or even some pre-done automations for ideas sake!

Alon Shemer · September 2020

BRANDON NANKIVELL said:

This has me extremely excited as I run a production company and am always looking for ways to make the process more efficient. Just one automation can save crazy amounts of time and $$$.

I'd love to see more suggestions for application or even some pre-done automations for ideas sake!

Thank you very much!
I will make more tutorials with more ideas of automations.
Ideas is also a hard part for me, you have to search for inefficient actions you make regularly then you can think of how to automate them.

Robert Penczak · September 2020

Can this be used to change the font of all (or some) text layers throughout a project? (I see text source listed as a property that can be modified but no specific mention of text font). Thanks.

Alon Shemer · September 2020

Robert Penczak said:

Can this be used to change the font of all (or some) text layers throughout a project? (I see text source listed as a property that can be modified but no specific mention of text font). Thanks.

Yes it is, in the newest version 1.0.1 I added font changing support so make sure you download the updated version.

for changing font you have first to know what your font's "real" name is(not the display name), for this add a "loop", inside add a "message" line and change it from custom to the loop name, then search for the property "font", click on "sum to list" so you can create a list from this.
add a line outside the loop with the big plus button and change it to list box and change it from custom to the message name.
now if you run the automation you will be able to copy the font name.

for changing the font in none keyframed source text layer, just use a "loop" and add inside a "set", select font and paste the font "real" name that you found earlier. (for changing fonts of keyframed text is a bit more complicated but is possible).

I attached this example as automation file so you can load and examine yourself(make sure you unzip the file).

Robert Penczak · September 2020

Thanks for the explanation and included files. Worked great. I purchased the script and look forward to discovering further ways to harness its power. Would echo sentiment from previous poster that I'd love to see additional use case scenarios and detailed instructions wherever necessary so we can learn to build these ourselves. Watching your video tutorials now. Thanks!

Alon Shemer · September 2020

Robert Penczak said:

Thanks for the explanation and included files. Worked great. I purchased the script and look forward to discovering further ways to harness its power. Would echo sentiment from previous poster that I'd love to see additional use case scenarios and detailed instructions wherever necessary so we can learn to build these ourselves. Watching your video tutorials now. Thanks!

That's very nice to hear, I really want to share the knowledge of how to create automations and I am working on more tutorials and content so stay tuned.

Craig Kuehne · September 2020

Alon Shemer said:

Craig Kuehne said:

I can’t tell if there a way to alter the settings of a composition? And if not, is that something that you can implement, and plan on implementing. Thank you!

Hi Craig Kuehne,
There is a way to do this and it's very simple(only 4 lines).
you can create new composition or use existing composition.
for using existing composition:
first you have to find the composition by it's name or check if the selected item is composition.
there is a lot of ways that you can choose what items you want to change the settings for.
after this you can change the name, parent folder, selection, label, height, width, duration, frame rate, time indicator, and if the motion blur is on/off.
You have to use a "loop" line with the option "items in the project" (items is also refers to compositions).
the loop will loop through all the items in the project panel.
inside the "loop" you should add an "if", then set it to "name" or "is selected", if you set it to "name" type the name of the composition you want to change, if you set "is selected" then select true to check if the item is selected.
(optional) add a new "if" line inside the "if" and set it to "item type" and then composition (to check if the selected item is a composition).
add a new line inside the "if" and change it to "set", now you can set one of the properties I mentioned.
you can add more "set" lines to change more properties.
from this example you can change many settings of all the selected compositions in the project panel.
I attached this example as automation file so you can load and examine yourself(make sure you unzip the file).

Fantastic! Thank you!

Andre Jacob · October 2020

Can it move selected keyframes an x number of frames or better yet, to the time cursor?

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Andre Jacob said:

Can it move selected keyframes an x number of frames or better yet, to the time cursor?

You can manipulate only the keyframes of the supported properties (opacity, position, anchor point, scale, rotation, orientation, source text and font).

You can only manipulate them separately so you have to make the same function on every one of them with many loops.

Change timing of keyframes is currently very limited although in some cases it can be done.

In your case unfortunately it's not possible,

it can be done with menu command on only 1 layer by using "cut" and "paste" functions and manipulate the time indicator as you want.

Andre Jacob · October 2020

Cut and paste is a good idea but, doesn't work with range selector... bummer... creates a new Animator... worked only on source text.

The script rd.scooter works well for moving frames, but fails at moving selected keyframes to time cursor.

Any plans to pimp your tool?

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Andre Jacob said:

Cut and paste is a good idea but, doesn't work with range selector... bummer... creates a new Animator... worked only on source text.
The script rd.scooter works well for moving frames, but fails at moving selected keyframes to time cursor.
Any plans to pimp your tool?

challenge accepted!,
I worked hard on that feature because it's not very easy to mess with keyframes.
version 1.0.2 is out! with your requested feature so now you can manipulate the keyframes.
I added 2 actions for layers, retime selected keyframes and retime all the keyframes.
both actions gets an input that can be any number as well as the composition time indicator.

I attached an example as automation file so you can load and examine yourself(make sure you unzip the file).

sss nnn · October 2020

I've been waiting for a script like this one！

but, LayerStyle support Please

Andre Jacob · October 2020

Works exactly as needed! Thanks!

Alon Shemer · October 2020

sss nnn said:

I've been waiting for a script like this one！
but, LayerStyle support Please

Thanks, you can add Layer Styles with the action "menu command", just type the name of the layer style, for example "Drop Shadow".
I can't add layer styles full support because it's not supported in the after effects scripting language.

Son Nguyen · October 2020

Great work. I purchased straight away. Works like a charm. One click and all my selected comps are transferred to Adobe Media Encoder.

I hope in future updates, you will add features like Batch Text Change, Batch replace footage by name, types. Or even batch update Comps from spreadsheet. If these are possible. Please let me know. I'll be waiting. Thank you!

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Son Nguyen said:

Great work. I purchased straight away. Works like a charm. One click and all my selected comps are transferred to Adobe Media Encoder.
I hope in future updates, you will add features like Batch Text Change, Batch replace footage by name, types. Or even batch update Comps from spreadsheet. If these are possible. Please let me know. I'll be waiting. Thank you!

Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

I'm planning on adding features over time and some of the features you have requested are already implemented.

For example, the source text can be manipulated but I am planning to add more options, like editing certain words in the text. Also, the feature to replace footage and layers is already implemented too (as long as they are already imported to the project).

The spreadsheet is a bit more complicated, so I can't tell if I'll be able to implement that in the foreseeable future.

I want to create more and more tutorials to help everyone uncover more of the functionalities it can deliver.

Dan Gehin · October 2020

I'm loving this so far, great work! Question: Can scripts created with this plugin be exported and run as a standalone jsx script (from File:Scripts), or does it always require owning the plugin?

Also, a little "bug" I found (if you can even call it that): There is no clear way to exit from an info window '(i)', I was clicking around and pushing random keys trying to close the window before I discovered 'esc' closes it. Some indication that 'esc' closes the window would be nice.

Robert Penczak · October 2020

I created guides and exported them.

I can now go into an arbitrary comp, go to the VIEW menu at the top of the program and click Import Guides to recreate those guides in that comp, after which I lock them.

Is there a way to automate that process with this script, so I could select 30 comps and import the same guide into each one of them and lock those guides in place?

Robert Penczak · October 2020

I have another use case request:

Let's say I have a hundred lines of text that have a repeating pattern every four lines where I would like the following:

Line 1: Anchor point for the text to the top left, Alignment for that paragraph to the Left, Position for the layer toward the top left of composition, at a fixed x,y point that puts it within the safe area for text (say 320 x, 150y in a 1920 x 1080 comp)

Line 2: Want that same as first line, but indented a fixed amount (say 100pixels) and placed beneath the first line by 1.5 times the font height of first line

Line 4: Anchor point for the text to bottom right; Alignment for the paragraph to the Right, Position for the layer toward bottom right of composition, at fixed x,y points within safe area for text, say 1500x and 930y

Line 3: Same as 4th line but indented a fixed amount (-100pixels) and placed above line 4 by 1.5 time font height of line 4

Is this doable in current version of Automation Toolkit? If so, could you explain how? If not, are you able to add features to make these kind of manipulations possible?

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Dan Gehin said:

I'm loving this so far, great work! Question: Can scripts created with this plugin be exported and run as a standalone jsx script (from File:Scripts), or does it always require owning the plugin?
Also, a little "bug" I found (if you can even call it that): There is no clear way to exit from an info window '(i)', I was clicking around and pushing random keys trying to close the window before I discovered 'esc' closes it. Some indication that 'esc' closes the window would be nice.

Dan, thank you, I'm glad you liked it,
if you want feel free to share it with your friends and colleagues.
Automation Toolkit can't export .jsx files, this feature is too complicated for me to implement right now although this is a good idea.
about the info window, thanks for letting me know about this bug, there should be an exit button, the problem exists only on mac, I will fix it in the next update.

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Robert Penczak said:

I created guides and exported them.
I can now go into an arbitrary comp, go to the VIEW menu at the top of the program and click Import Guides to recreate those guides in that comp, after which I lock them.

Is there a way to automate that process with this script, so I could select 30 comps and import the same guide into each one of them and lock those guides in place?

Hi Robert,
I didn't know import/export guides can be done,
guides are currently not supported.
in the next update that will be soon! I am planning to add 2 item actions that will solve your problem, remove all guides and copy guides(from another comp).

maybe also add vertical guide(number) and add horizontal guide(number), so you can create your template in automation toolkit instead of importing it every time.
keep in mind this actions will work only in adobe after effects 2019 and above.

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Robert Penczak said:

I have another use case request:

Let's say I have a hundred lines of text that have a repeating pattern every four lines where I would like the following:

Line 1: Anchor point for the text to the top left, Alignment for that paragraph to the Left, Position for the layer toward the top left of composition, at a fixed x,y point that puts it within the safe area for text (say 320 x, 150y in a 1920 x 1080 comp)

Line 2: Want that same as first line, but indented a fixed amount (say 100pixels) and placed beneath the first line by 1.5 times the font height of first line

Line 4: Anchor point for the text to bottom right; Alignment for the paragraph to the Right, Position for the layer toward bottom right of composition, at fixed x,y points within safe area for text, say 1500x and 930y

Line 3: Same as 4th line but indented a fixed amount (-100pixels) and placed above line 4 by 1.5 time font height of line 4

Is this doable in current version of Automation Toolkit? If so, could you explain how? If not, are you able to add features to make these kind of manipulations possible?

Robert, I didn't understand exactly from your message what you are trying to do so it's hard to answer if this is possible. I know that some of the things you described can be done and some can't, for example the things that can be done is - changing the anchor point to the top/bottom left/right, change position to the x,y you want, you can know the size of the text with the width and height properties and times by 1.5.

you can't change the paragraph (I am planning to add this property in the next update).
you can't separate a text layer with many lines to many layers.

if you still have questions about this specific automation you can open a support ticket and I will try to help you out.

Robert Penczak · October 2020

@Alon - thanks for the quick replies to both questions. Glad to hear you'll be adding a solution for guides and are actively developing what looks like it could be an immensely useful script!

Regarding the second case request, I'll do some further testing on my own and will open a support ticket if I can't get the currently available features working properly. For clarity, I'm not talking about breaking up a single text layer into multiple lines. I'm talking about 4 separate text layers per composition, and I would like to position those text layers as described below (listed as Line 1 - Line 4). Coding wise, I guess this would require the ability to identify an nth element, so in multiple comps, the 1st text layer would receive one treatment, the 2nd text layer another treatment, and the 3rd and 4th layers their own, specific treatments with regard to positioning, anchor point and so forth.

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Robert Penczak said:

@Alon - thanks for the quick replies to both questions. Glad to hear you'll be adding a solution for guides and are actively developing what looks like it could be an immensely useful script!

Regarding the second case request, I'll do some further testing on my own and will open a support ticket if I can't get the currently available features working properly. For clarity, I'm not talking about breaking up a single text layer into multiple lines. I'm talking about 4 separate text layers per composition, and I would like to position those text layers as described below (listed as Line 1 - Line 4). Coding wise, I guess this would require the ability to identify an nth element, so in multiple comps, the 1st text layer would receive one treatment, the 2nd text layer another treatment, and the 3rd and 4th layers their own, specific treatments with regard to positioning, anchor point and so forth.

Robert I tried to make an automation that works as you described, this works but needs much more work, I think it can help you to understand how to create the whole automation yourself, for now I made it so it makes the function only on the selected composition but you can change this later(you will have to create it from scratch in a different configuration of loops).
as for the other case, I updated automation toolkit to version 1.0.2.1 so now you can manipulate the guides as you want(only cc19 and above)!.

I attached the example as automation file so you can load and examine yourself(make sure you unzip the file).

way art · October 2020

hi alon

I have a suggestion. Divide the script into two different interfaces, one interface design script, and one interface displaying the completed toolbar. Because the toolbar is usually small, and the script design interface is usually large.

Alon Shemer · October 2020

way art said:

hi alon

X
MultiCopyPaste
Time to upgrade, it’s free!
Simply click on the top left of the extension and register to get access to 10 shortcuts. Your email will remain secure, but we might get in touch for your feedback!

I have a suggestion. Divide the script into two different interfaces, one interface design script, and one interface displaying the completed toolbar. Because the toolbar is usually small, and the script design interface is usually large.

Hi way art,
first thanks for your suggestion, I am open to suggestions and feature requests so feel free to share more with me.
I understands the inconvenient of resizing the window back and fourth.
I found the current state to be the best solution because it solves the problem of having to reloading the automations to the panel so it makes the interface more fluid and responsive.
This is not an extension so there are many limitations in the user interface that I have to deal with. if Automation Toolkit was an extension I think the best way was making two different interfaces.

way art · October 2020

Alon Shemer said:

way art said:

hi alon

X
MultiCopyPaste
Time to upgrade, it’s free!
Simply click on the top left of the extension and register to get access to 10 shortcuts. Your email will remain secure, but we might get in touch for your feedback!

I have a suggestion. Divide the script into two different interfaces, one interface design script, and one interface displaying the completed toolbar. Because the toolbar is usually small, and the script design interface is usually large.

Hi way art,
first thanks for your suggestion, I am open to suggestions and feature requests so feel free to share more with me.
I understands the inconvenient of resizing the window back and fourth.
I found the current state to be the best solution because it solves the problem of having to reloading the automations to the panel so it makes the interface more fluid and responsive.
This is not an extension so there are many limitations in the user interface that I have to deal with. if Automation Toolkit was an extension I think the best way was making two different interfaces.

thanks for your reply.

I think maybe you can add a page in the settings panel that can set each automations separately

Jimi Hendrix · October 2020

I am like others... thinking the manual needs to be a bit better for this...

I played with it a little and wanted to give feedback / ask a few ?'s.

1. Can I reference a variable in the textboxes in anyway? I found myself storing variables and then wanting to add to the variable but I was not sure how to reference the variable... Is there a way to reference variables in the textboxes of the plugin itself. I could send a picture later if this is unclear.

2. Time.... I wanted to offset all my clips by one frame... I was unsure how to add a frame to the time... or even how the plugin interacted with time...

I will try to play some more because there are other things I want to do that I would use this for more.... Keep working on it...

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Jimi Hendrix said:

I am like others... thinking the manual needs to be a bit better for this...

I played with it a little and wanted to give feedback / ask a few ?'s.

1. Can I reference a variable in the textboxes in anyway? I found myself storing variables and then wanting to add to the variable but I was not sure how to reference the variable... Is there a way to reference variables in the textboxes of the plugin itself. I could send a picture later if this is unclear.

2. Time.... I wanted to offset all my clips by one frame... I was unsure how to add a frame to the time... or even how the plugin interacted with time...

I will try to play some more because there are other things I want to do that I would use this for more.... Keep working on it...

Hi Jimi,
Thanks for your feedback, I will work more on the manual to make it better.
As for your questions, the first question is unclear to me so please try to give me more information with an example. after setting up a variable you can use it as you can use a loop,
the variable can be number, text, Boolean, layer, item or property,
if you select number/text/Boolean the variable will have one property called "value".
if you select Layer/Item/Property the variable will have the Layer/item/property properties(name, in point, selected...).

you can use the "set" and select the name of the variable to set the value of one of the properties of the variable, add another value to it with math operations and so on..

you can also use variable inside an "if" to check it's value.

for your second question, you can offset your clips with the property start time and set it to the start time + 1 / comp frame rate.
The time in automation toolkit works in seconds , so if you type 1 in the start time it will move your clips to 0:00:01:00 in the timeline so in order to move it only by one frame you have to divide 1 second to your comp frame rate to find out what is the duration of a frame, in a 25 fps comp the duration of a frame is 0.04.
you can find out what is your composition's frame rate automatically too with variable, the type of an item, select the loop name and then containing comp.
then later you can use the variable's property called "frame rate".

Alex Berkowitz · October 2020

Hello,

I see you describe your plugin as being unable to change the properties of effects within layers. Does this mean that if I were to, for example, apply the built-in VR Converter effect to the composition, I wouldn't be able to automate changing the "input", "output", or "FOV" properties?

Thanks!

Alex Berkowitz · October 2020

Alon Shemer said:

Alex Berkowitz said:

Hello,

I see you describe your plugin as being unable to change the properties of effects within layers. Does this mean that if I were to, for example, apply the built-in VR Converter effect to the composition, I wouldn't be able to automate changing the "input", "output", or "FOV" properties?

Thanks!

Hello Alex, you are correct, you can only add the effects, maybe in the future update I will add the functionality of manipulating the properties too.

Thanks for the quick response!

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Alex Berkowitz said:

Hello,

I see you describe your plugin as being unable to change the properties of effects within layers. Does this mean that if I were to, for example, apply the built-in VR Converter effect to the composition, I wouldn't be able to automate changing the "input", "output", or "FOV" properties?

Thanks!

Alex,
I am happy to let you know that changing effect's properties is now possible in the latest version of automation toolkit (1.0.2.2) so it is now possible to change the "input", "output", or "FOV" properties.
a video on the new features in on the way!

Thanks,
Alon

Penelope Harpley · October 2020

I am in love with the possibilities of this script. Being able to automate so much stuff in one place, instead of across multiple scripts and plugins.... makes my boss & accounting department happy. Can't wait for more videos.

This might be in previous comments, and I've missed it, and I'm also still getting my head around how to "speak the language" of this script. But, on already imported items, is there a way to find a certain folder in the projects panel, and then import all the assets in that folder into a brand new comp? Super basic, but I hope to expand on custom actions afterwards.

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Penelope Harpley said:

I am in love with the possibilities of this script. Being able to automate so much stuff in one place, instead of across multiple scripts and plugins.... makes my boss & accounting department happy. Can't wait for more videos.

This might be in previous comments, and I've missed it, and I'm also still getting my head around how to "speak the language" of this script. But, on already imported items, is there a way to find a certain folder in the projects panel, and then import all the assets in that folder into a brand new comp? Super basic, but I hope to expand on custom actions afterwards.

Penelope, thanks for your comment!
This was my thought when I created Automation Toolkit, make an easy and fast way to create your own tools without having to collect many different scripts.
I can assure you that once you get how speak the language the process become very instinctive and fast, keep trying many things and you will get it. I am also working on more tutorials.

for your question, yes it's possible.

1. first you have to loop on the items in the project
2. you can identify the folder by it's name or check if any folder is selected.
3. after you found the folder, save that folder in a new Item variable.
4. add a new composition, with the project action "add composition".

4. find the new composition by it's name(with a loop), save it in variable and change the settings of the composition as you want(with the set).
5. loop on all the items again, and check if the "parent folder" property = to the variable that contain the folder that you found (checking if the project items are inside the folder).
6. if they are inside, use the action of the composition variable "add item" to add this loop item to the composition.

I hope that you understood all the steps and why they are necessary, this is the most basic way to do this, you could add the functionality that if the folder is not exist it won't create the composition or also calculate all the footage durations together or set the composition duration to the longest footage.

I attached the example as automation file so you can load and examine yourself, in the example the folder name is "Videos"(make sure to use the latest version and to unzip the file).

please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,
Alon

Penelope Harpley · October 2020

Thank you so much for the explanation! It works perfectly.

Penelope Harpley · October 2020

Is there a way to find the largest height/width of a layer in a comp? Think a gallery of a dozen image layers of varying pixel dimensions and I want to crop the comp to the largest image.

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Penelope Harpley said:

Is there a way to find the largest height/width of a layer in a comp? Think a gallery of a dozen image layers of varying pixel dimensions and I want to crop the comp to the largest image.

{fixed my answer and the automation to work only on the largest width}
Yes there is, but you have to choose if you want the layer largest width or height.

1. make 2 number variables (maxWidth,maxHeight) and assign them the value of 0.

2. loop on all the layers in the active comp(you can also do this on a specific composition with the option "loop layers in other comp" but you will have to specify a composition).

3. add an if for the loop and check if the loop layer "width" property > the variable "maxWidth" "value" property, (inside the if) set "maxWidth" value to the loop layer "width" property and also set the "maxHeight" to the loop layer "height" property.

in this way you will find the largest width and the corresponding height.

for every layer it will check if the layer width is larger than the maxWidth value and if it is set the maxWidth and maxHeight to the Layer with the larger width.

then you want to change the comp width and height to the maxWidth and maxHeight.
(you can save the comp in an Item variable with the layer property "containing comp" that will give you the the comp), then set the comp's width and height to the maxWidth and maxHeight.

the last thing to do is to reset the position of the layers (because the change of the size messes them up), you need to set them to the maxWidth/2 and maxHeight/2 because this is the new center of the comp.

I attached the example as automation file so you can load and examine yourself(make sure you unzip the file).
Thanks,
Alon

Penelope Harpley · October 2020

Thank you so much! By splitting this across a width only loop, and a height only loop, I am able to get the dimensions to fit the widest layer and the tallest layer at the click of a button.
This is amazing, please keep working on this script.

Penelope Harpley · October 2020

Is there a way to set a custom amount to how many times a layer will be duplicated? For example, if comp name is COMP1, duplicate all font layers 5 times, but if comp name is COMP2, duplicate all shape layers 7 times?

Alon Shemer · October 2020

Penelope Harpley said:

Is there a way to set a custom amount to how many times a layer will be duplicated? For example, if comp name is COMP1, duplicate all font layers 5 times, but if comp name is COMP2, duplicate all shape layers 7 times?

Hi Penelope,

yes this can be done.
there is a way to run the same automation lines couple of times, this is an option within the loop called "custom amount of times", you have to type how many times this loop will cycle and everything inside will happened this number of times.

duplication of layer within any loop is limited for safety reason(avoiding endless loop),
every action of duplicate can duplicate only 1 time so you can't use the "custom amount of times" for this but for the other actions and everything else it will work fine.

you can still achieve multiple duplications with many actions of "duplicate", if you want to duplicate 5 times, add 5 actions of "duplicate".

I attached the example as automation file so you can load and examine yourself(make sure you unzip the file).

Thanks,

Alon

Son Nguyen · October 2020

Hi Alon,

Thank you so much for the new update with effect property control.

It works great with properties which have '1 drop down menu' or '1 value slider'. But I don't know how to get it work with property having '2 drop down menus'. Could you help me with this?

Thank you!

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