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CC 2014 Editable text from AE templates
With CC 2014 being released I was mostly looking forward to being able to make compositions/templates in After Effects and then bring them into Premiere and be able to change the text in premiere without having to go back to AE. Here are a few things I have noticed with this feature testing it with a simple lower 3rd:
-once the AE lower 3rd template is in the timeline you can’t select the lower 3rd and use the effect controls panel to change the text, you have to find that template in your project panel and double click it to bring it into the viewer, then you can select the effects control tab and modify the text.
-Because of my first point this means you have to have a new copy of the template in your project for each different lower 3rd you plan to make or else you just end up with the same text on all instances
-I’m testing on a 2012 retina macbook pro & rendering these in premiere is extremely slow if you have AE open, I even prerendered & replaced everything in my lower 3rd template except the editable text and it still renders at a snail’s pace with AE open. Also if you render in premiere while AE is open with the template you are rendering open you will notice the text in AE will repeatedly flash from the placeholder text to the modified(in PP) text until the render is done, kinda odd.
-this is in Adobe’s notes for the feature but I will post it here too: once you have 1 composition in your AE project with editable premiere text, you cannot dynamically link/import any other sequence in that AE project that does not have premiere editable text, those comps just will not show up in the import dialog.
-Editing text in premiere is that only, just the text. No kerning/font/size/paragraph options to modify, everything has to be set up in AE.
That’s it so far. As of now it doesn’t seem quite as flexible as Motion templates were in final cut 7(and I hope adobe is heading in that direction) but I’m sure I will still be able to get some use out of the feature.
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15 Replies
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[Nevin Styre] “-this is in Adobe’s notes for the feature but I will post it here too: once you have 1 composition in your AE project with editable premiere text, you cannot dynamically link/import any other sequence in that AE project that does not have premiere editable text, those comps just will not show up in the import dialog.”
this makes some sense. I’m guessing that they make template AE projects have a different file extension?
so you’d kind need to AE projects: 1 for general dynamic linking and 1 for templates?
Alex Udell
Editing, Motion Graphics, and Visual FX -
it has the same file extension. You don’t necessarily need a separate AE project, just as long as the comps you want to use have the “template” checkbox on in the comp settings->advanced tab, even if they don’t have text in the comp.
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[Nevin Styre] “-I’m testing on a 2012 retina macbook pro & rendering these in premiere is extremely slow if you have AE open, I even prerendered & replaced everything in my lower 3rd template except the editable text and it still renders at a snail’s pace with AE open.”
This was the first thing that I noticed. AE 14 seems much more memory hungry than AE CC. However, the tradeoff is that I am seeing renders on my rMBP and my New Mac Pro that are almost double what I see with AE CC.
My recommendation – don’t try to multi-task with the new apps if you have less than 32GB of RAM. I can get work done in 16GB, but it’s painful compared to the CC apps.
Hmm, is that how we should be differentiating them – CC versus 14?
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
You might be interested in a technique I’ve been experimenting with:
https://www.keenlive.com/renderbreak/2014/06/rigging-ae-comps-with-the-new-templates-feature/
I’m hijacking the templates feature with Ae expressions, using them to allow the Ae designer to rig the comp for control from Premiere. Once that’s set up, the Premiere editor can change published parameters that affect the underlying Ae comp without ever opening Ae.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Walter….
AMAZING!!! nicely done sir!
Alex Udell
Editing, Motion Graphics, and Visual FX -
[Nevin Styre] “-once the AE lower 3rd template is in the timeline you can’t select the lower 3rd and use the effect controls panel to change the text, you have to find that template in your project panel and double click it to bring it into the viewer, then you can select the effects control tab and modify the text.
-Because of my first point this means you have to have a new copy of the template in your project for each different lower 3rd you plan to make or else you just end up with the same text on all instances”
This is consistent with the way Premiere handles titles. I’m a former FCP user, so this seemed strange to me at first, too.
But I have actually come to like this method. It makes titles into project-level assets that you can track and re-use. Typo in somebody’s name? They’re titled in three different sequences? No problem. The changes are source-side, so they affect all instances.
Having to make a source-side change from the timeline does add an extra step, but it’s been a good reminder for me that I’m changing an object, not an instance.
Also, Match Frame and Reverse Match Frame work with templates just like they do with regular clips, so it’s pretty easy to navigate.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Alex Udell] “Walter…. AMAZING!!! nicely done sir!”
Thank you kindly, Alex!
I am sure you will find a clever use for this.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Very cool, Walter!
Kevin Monahan
Support Product Manager—DVA
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe
Follow Me on Twitter! -
Another issue I find is that if you have text in a template comp that is brought in from another comp via expression, you can’t override that text with this system, which is a big letdown. We have a complex set of comps that use text and parameters from other comps, and I thought this new feature could be used to implement instancing within the system, but it seems it can’t be done.
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[Touko Maksimainen] “Another issue I find is that if you have text in a template comp that is brought in from another comp via expression, you can’t override that text with this system, which is a big letdown.”
Sure you can. You just have to build that logic into your template and expressions.
Test for a default value in the text layer’s text.sourceText property — maybe something clever like ‘default’ — and use that to determine whether to return your current expression-generated text or the unmodified text.sourceText in order to catch changes from a Premiere template.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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