Creating plugins

[Nicholas Toth]

give AFX Moho capabilities — ie Rigging and Bones
I’ll be the first to buy it from you

[Mylenium]

It’s not impossible, I think. The SDK/ API for AE is quite complex, but you probably will only use parts of it. I’ve got tons of ideas, but it would take too long to explain them all. If you need some inspiration, feel free to contact me off list when the time is near. Most likely you should create a little universally usable tool like e.g. a color sampler or access to mask vertices or you could write a shape/ pattern generator. I don’t think going to exotic is feasible, as you will need a lot of research e.g. if you were to do 3D related functions and that research would probably consume more time than the actual programming.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Mylenium]

It’s not impossible, I think. The SDK/ API for AE is quite complex, but you probably will only use parts of it. I’ve got tons of ideas, but it would take too long to explain them all. If you need some inspiration, feel free to contact me off list when the time is near. Most likely you should create a little universally usable tool like e.g. a color sampler or access to mask vertices or you could write a shape/ pattern generator. I don’t think going to exotic is feasible, as you will need a lot of research e.g. if you were to do 3D related functions and that research would probably consume more time than the actual programming.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Mylenium]

It’s not impossible, I think. The SDK/ API for AE is quite complex, but you probably will only use parts of it. I’ve got tons of ideas, but it would take too long to explain them all. If you need some inspiration, feel free to contact me off list when the time is near. Most likely you should create a little universally usable tool like e.g. a color sampler or access to mask vertices or you could write a shape/ pattern generator. I don’t think going to exotic is feasible, as you will need a lot of research e.g. if you were to do 3D related functions and that research would probably consume more time than the actual programming.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Patrick Hearn]

Thanks for the replies.
I think I would be leaning more towards what you suggested there, Mylenium. My idea to incorporate it into a project was to create a video piece which required a certain tool which currently doesn’t exist in AE, which I would then create. I don’t think I’d be ambitious enough to venture into 3d territory. It’s really only a concept at the moment and I haven’t given a lot of thought as to what the video piece or the tool could be.
Anyway, if I carry on with this idea I’d certainly be interested in any suitable ideas you or anyone else may have.

[Colin Braley]

I think creating a plug in is very feasable for a guy with “okish” programming abilities. I’ve been wanting to write a few plug ins for a while, but I’ve never really had enough time to devote to learning the API. If I were you I would do the following:
– Read Bruce Bullis’ blog (hes the AE API Manager)…heres the link
https://blogs.adobe.com/ae_api/
– Download the API from Adobe’s site but before you start digging through it I reccomend reading this document https://blogs.adobe.com/ae_api/
– Your also going to need to brush up (or learn) some C/C++ and some math. If you want any links to relavent math topics I can give you some. However, depending on what you plan on developing might not necessarily have to learn a ton of math, but for other things it will be very necessary.
~Colin

[Jim Tierney]

Here’s a good place to start:

https://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.15/15.09/AfterEffectsPlugins/

Also, download the SDK from the Adobe web site. It provides a number of examples.

As pointed out, take a look at Bruce Bullis’ blog. You can also contact him for additional resources.

To do anything interesting, you will need to be very familiar with C, math, particularly vector math and linear algebra, and have an ok understanding of graphics algorithms. There isn’t much that hasn’t been done for AE, that will be a good first programming project (i.e. relatively easy). I would focus on perhaps something that has been done and can be improved, perhaps using GPU acceleration.

cheers,
Jim

——————
Jim Tierney
Digital Anarchy
http://www.digitalanarchy.com
415-586-8434

[Jim Tierney]

This was posted by Gary Reisman awhile ago:

>>why doesn’t someone come out with a very basic Line,Circle, Square
plug-in that lets ya create shapes via simple target points and all?

like Circles are Awesome! :

https://windowseat.ca/circles/index.php
<< Neat idea, useful, and should be reasonably easy to code. Find a way to automatically animate the circles around, and on/off and you should have a nifty little filter for doing motion graphics. cheers, Jim Tierney jim@digitalanarchy.com

——————
Jim Tierney
Digital Anarchy
http://www.digitalanarchy.com
415-586-8434

[Joshua Ferg]

AE has always a feature to collect files.

Scenerio: You’re working on a project across servers, etc with media say in 5 or six different locations.

You need a feature where you can automatically copy all of the media used in the project, creat a copy of the project and have a folder created on teh desktop with all the cpoied media files re-linked in the copy project.