ADBE Vectors Group documentation

[Walter Soyka]

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]

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]

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]

[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]

[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]

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

[Rob Mcgowan]

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.