adding templates w/previews?

[Batman]

i m sorry….
i have been saving my designs, opens and elements to a aep, but i’ve been dragging them into a folder inside /Support Files/Templates….when i drag them into this folder they begome .aet instead of .aep’s…………but i like the access to past projests and design studies i have painlessly created…….my question is how can i make mine appear like the default adobe provided samples included with the professional version, i assume they are different between pro and not? i really don’t know…anyway, the deffault samples have preview icons and small preview movies of the motion in any given samples template, this is my question….i cannot see more than a generic ae icon on all of my ‘self generated templates’ i would like mine to appear with a preview icon and a small preview movie? I think maybe Bridge is somehow involved?maybe? i have no more ideas…….i hope this is detailed enough….thankx

[Darby Edelen]

I don’t think you can make previews for your own templates, but if you can it’s probably hidden somewhere in Adobe Bridge.

[Batman]

all of this i know, DAVE, this is what i do now, but none of my PROJECTS or FOLDERS can be dressed up and made more useful, by including the previews and icons………..this is what i want to do make my templates appear in thier respective folders with a preview icon and a preview movie.

[Darby Edelen]

[Dave LaRonde] “Don’t even bother saving those AE projects as templates”

I think it’s actually better to save them as templates as this means you can’t save any accidental changes into the file, you can still import them into other projects.

Other than that your naming conventions are right on =)

[Brian Charles]

One thing you can do is render a lower resolution animated GIF, AVI or QuickTime with the same name as your template then save the render into the same folder as the templates.

So you’ll end up with “my_great_template.aet” and “my_great_template.gif”. Selecting the gif will show you the preview.

Adobe has clearly hidden the method they use to preview templates in Bridge. Just like the text animation presets that are only viewable in on-line Help.

[Batman]

thanks dude i’ll try that

[Sam Moulton]

there is a script and tutorial floating around somewhere that lets you do this. I’ve done it in the past. You basically render out a small version of your comp then run the script and the preview is embedded.

I’ll check my records and see if I can locate the tutorial and script.

[Jesse Rusinski]

do you know where i can find the tutorial that explains how to create a preview file for an after effects template project?