• Adobe After Effects

  ADBE Vectors Group documentation

  Posted by Rob Mcgowan on February 22, 2017 at 4:55 pm

  hi, anyone know a good source of documentation on ADBE Vectors Group?
  All i can seem to find is specific use cases.
  Thanks

  Rob Mcgowan replied 9 years, 2 months ago 2 Members · 7 Replies
• 7 Replies

• 

  Walter Soyka

  February 22, 2017 at 6:25 pm

  Other than the Ae scripting guide as a general reference, no.

  What is it you’re trying to do?

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]
• 

  Rob Mcgowan

  February 22, 2017 at 8:09 pm

  hi, I’m writing scripts to build shape layers. So I’m ending up with stuff like;-

  contents.addProperty(“ADBE Vector Shape – Rect”);
  var myEllipse = contents.addProperty(“ADBE Vector Shape – Ellipse”);
  myEllipse.property(“ADBE Vector Ellipse Size”).setValue([controllerSize,controllerSize]);
  var myShapeFill = contents.addProperty(“ADBE Vector Graphic – Fill”);
  myShapeFill.property(“ADBE Vector Fill Color”).setValue(myFillColor);

  So, extracting the strings we have
  1 ADBE Vector Shape – Rect
  2 ADBE Vector Shape – Ellipse
  3 ADBE Vector Ellipse Size
  4 ADBE Vector Fill Color
  5 ADBE Vector Graphic – Fill
  6 ADBE Root Vectors Group

  Ellipse is Ellipse but Rectangle is Rect. 1 & 2 have “-” signs but 3 & 4 don’t. 1 & 2 refer to ADBE Vector Shape and 5 to ADBE Vector Graphic. In 6 Vectors is plural and Root is added.

  Without a reference it’s a bit hard to determine how the object model in the manual will translate.
• 

  Rob Mcgowan

  February 22, 2017 at 8:21 pm

  And regarding the documentation, I have to wonder what bright spark issued several 200 page help files with neither an index or a table contents. It’s deplorable.
• 

  Walter Soyka

  February 22, 2017 at 8:38 pm

  [rob mcgowan] “Without a reference it’s a bit hard to determine how the object model in the manual will translate.”

  Yes, the shape-specific documentation here is slim. You can figure out a lot pretty quickly with this, building shapes in Ae and then exploring their structure with this script:
  https://www.redefinery.com/ae/view.php?item=rd_GimmePropPath

  Most of what you need to know for dealing with shapes is covered in the sections on the Property, PropertyBase, and PropertyGroup, and Shape objects.

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]
• 

  Walter Soyka

  February 22, 2017 at 8:39 pm

  [rob mcgowan] “And regarding the documentation, I have to wonder what bright spark issued several 200 page help files with neither an index or a table contents. It’s deplorable.”

  The scripting guide uses PDF bookmarks extensively for organization. Open up the panel on the left in Acrobat.

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]
• 

  Rob Mcgowan

  February 22, 2017 at 8:45 pm

  Thanks. I’ve been opening the docs straight in browser. I’m downloading a proper reader now…
• 

  Rob Mcgowan

  February 24, 2017 at 11:50 pm

  Yeah the redefinery rd_gimmeproppath script byJeffrey R. Almasol is absolutely amazing.

  I hadn’t used it before because the redefinery site only seems to include a later than CS4 version. However the older version is on github and its fine.

  It resolved 99% of my After Effects object model questions apart from a few odds and ends like .guideLayer and other stuff which isn’t a property one can select in the timeline. The script has a big associative array which links UI stuff to the back end ADBE and that’s about as good a reference as anyone could want.

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