• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  where to find scripting basics for beginners?

  Posted by Remy Mainz on March 31, 2010 at 12:33 pm

  HI I have used expressions for a while but now i want to try scripting to control placing and organising of layers.

  I am trying the very first steps in the “Adobe intro to scripting” in the extendscript toolkit and immediately run into problem. The first thing it asked to do is this in java and then VBS.

  app.documents.add()
  or
  Set appRef = CreateObject(“Adode After Effects CS4.Application”)
  appRef.Documents.Add()

  Both of which give me errors and dont work!

  Clearly I have no idea what Im doing but if the intro first steps dont work then how am I going to learn anything. Im certainly not going continue with the adobe scripting guide.

  Is there another intro for absolute beginners that does work in CS4?

  thanka a lot
  JG

  Remy Mainz replied 16 years, 1 month ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Todd Kopriva

  March 31, 2010 at 2:49 pm

  In both the “Writing and modifying scripts” section and in the comments on this page, there are links to so basic, introductory resources.

  Also, there’s a bonus chapter about scripting on the DVD that comes with Mark Christiansen’s _After Effects CS4 Studio Techniques_ book.

  ———————————————————————————————————
  Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
  putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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• 

  Lloyd Alvarez

  March 31, 2010 at 10:24 pm

  I also just finished teaching an intro to after effects scripting course at fx-phd. If there is enough interest they will run the course again so send them an email to let them know.

  -Lloyd

  https://aescripts.com
• 

  Remy Mainz

  April 1, 2010 at 11:25 am

  thanks guys
  my first script that sets up a timelapse of frames as individual layers on the timeline to slowly fade between frames.

  var firstComp = app.project.item(1);
var layerCollection = firstComp.layers;
var leny = layerCollection.length;

  for(i=1; i<leny + 1;i++){

  var currentlayer = firstComp.layers[i]

  currentlayer.inPoint = (i - 0.5)
  currentlayer.outPoint = currentlayer.inPoint + 3

  myOpacity = currentlayer.property("opacity");
  myOpacity.setValueAtTime(currentlayer.inPoint,0);
  myOpacity.setValueAtTime(currentlayer.inPoint + 1 ,100);
  myOpacity.setValueAtTime(currentlayer.outPoint - 1 ,100);
  myOpacity.setValueAtTime(currentlayer.outPoint ,0);

  }


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