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Duplicating comps with expression controls, maintain hierarchy
Hi. I’m running AE 7 and trying to find a way to better organize my project. It’s an animated short, with different shots freaturing the same character model.
I set up the character rigs to have controls in the outer-most comp. For example, you can control the eyelids in the eye comp by rotating an a null layer in the outer-most model comp layer.
I went ahead and made the character rig it’s own project (making different projects for different characters), with aims to import it for each scene in my large, master project. However, when I import the project more than once, the expression-based controls mess up because there are multiple compositions with the same name. If I rotate the null in the outer-most model comp layer, then it affects all of the eyelids with the same comp name.
I can rename the comps, but this means I have to go back and tweak all of the code with the newly corrected comp names. Is there some way to duplicate the entire model, consisting of multiple compositions, and preserve the set hierarchy of expression controls after duplication?
Thanks!
steve -
6 Replies
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Can you clarify some things? I’m not sure if I understand you correctly:
1) Are the characters in different comps or different projects?
2) In your final project are you using more than one of each character? If so, why?
3) How long is the final product going to be (about)?If it’s going to be a somewhat long animation you might consider breaking it up into scenes and cutting them together with video editing software. That’s what I’d do anyways.
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Sure, it’s a confusing explanation.
1) I made all the characters as different projects. Within these projects, there’s a main charater comp, along with several more comps nested within the main character comp for the face. (The face then has more nested comps for eyes, and a mouth layer, etc). But the expression controls linked to these nested layers are always in the main character comp window.
2) I was hoping to import more than one character into the project to streamline the animating process. There are about 70 shots, and rather than keframing pose changes that might happen from shot to shot, I figured it would just be easier to quickly re-import the established character model for each new shot. Then I could have a separate character model for each shot, and if I needed to break the rig because of any certain poses, it wouldn’t affect the rest of the shots.
3) the final animation will be about 6 minutes long.
I thought about making separate projects for each scene. I know that’s what’s done with most after effects pieces like this. But I thought since having one main project could make it easier to switch working from scene to scene, match action across cuts, and make the big whale more managable in general.
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Well, I have no idea if there is or isn’t a magical tool that renames all your comps for you, but my guess is such a tool doesn’t exist. You might have to choose between two potentially time-saving techniques.
About the length, you might consider chopping it up at least a little. Maybe “cut” to a new project when little action is taking place or if there is a location change or something. I know I would be nervous to try and render out 6 minutes at once, especially if there were any render-intensive effects. But I suppose you could set the work area to a shorter amount and do it in increments. Good luck! Let me know what you end up doing and how it works for you (I wouldn’t mind seeing the final product either)! -
Yeah, I’m thinking about dividing it in a couple parts. Either that or having a separate project for every shot. I also might end up using different cameras to switch shots when the character action is continuous. And I think I’ll still end up cutting it in an editing program.
Thanks for your help!
steve -
To give a clean technical answer to your problem: expression references are absolute based on the names/ strings defined in them. Different controls/ comps/ layers need to have unique names inside a project if they are to be controlled by different sets of expressions. You possibly can’t avoid renaming your stuff whenever you intend to merge two or more of your setups.
Mylenium
[Pour Myl
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I know this is super old, but if you’re still looking for a solution to your problem there’s an script called True Comp Duplicator on aescripts.com that can help you with that. It’s by far the most useful script I own, it’s $25. Very highly recommended.
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