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Project Linking Feature Request
I recently posted this to Adobe as a feature request but wanted to see if others in the COW community felt that they could benefit from this. It’s something that we deal with here on almost a daily basis when a team of AE artists is working together on a job.
After Effects has always been able to import one project into another which is a very useful feature. This takes it a step further whereby you would import one project into a main project, but the imported project would link back to the original so that if you re-open the original your changes made in the main project would be reflected. Sounds a little confusing, but here’s the scenario that frequently comes up in our facility:
A lead artist will be working with 1 or 2 assistants. The lead will have a “Master.aep” project and the assistants might be working on a couple of separate shots that will eventually be fed into “Master.aep” project. Once the lead imports them into the project, he will typically tweak the assistants comps further in “Master.aep”. However, if later on he wants the assistant to further revise their, shot this feature would enable the original project to be linked to the “Master.aep” so that changes made in master would be reflected when the assistant re-opens the original project. Right now we have to re-export the shots back out for the assistants with collected files and it just adds time and clutter to our pipeline. This idea of linking projects would keep the process a lot cleaner and would allow multiple artists to collaborate more efficiently.
Not sure if this would help others, but it would be a workflow improvement that we could significantly benefit from.
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11 Replies
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Could see that being helpful, often we have multiple people working on projects too, can get confusing keeping it straight, updating other work…
Feature would need to be something that could be activated/deactivated, though. Often I will import projects for something specific, a graphic or look I’ve created but wouldn’t want to change the original project.
Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.thinkck.com -
whenever you delete a reference from your hard disk, AE does not auto update. I find that rather peculiar. Also, I believe I often do what you’re talking about manually; importing one project into another and merging the final output of it to all the inputs and sources of the master comp. I have to do this by hand. I can code a script that would make this automatic if I felt like it. What do you guys think?
https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/
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Thats my feeling too Dave. I figured it would probably be a massive code re-write for this specific feature. However, even if it wasn’t done in this manner I am hoping they may be able implement better multi-artist scenarios for working on different scene elements. As expectations get bigger and deadlines get shorter its become more and more common for many facilities to work in teams these days and I’d love to see some work flow enhancements from Adobe that cater to this trend. For now, I’ll just keep collecting those files … 🙂
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Yes definitely would need to be on or off for exactly what you’re describing. People typically have template projects built that you wouldn’t want to modify. I almost see it as a separate Import menu option entirely. So you’d have “Import>Linked Project” versus “Import>File” … regardless I think from Dave’s comment this is likely just wishful thinking. Would be curious to hear Todd’s opinion.
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aescripts.com has a script that saves a comp out as an AEP. This sounds like a workable option and precludes writing over the original – essentially giving you the best of both worlds.
HTH
RoRKAE Training in South East Asia. AE templates for sale and rental. Click here for more
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I won’t comment on features in future versions of After Effects, but I will say this:
We are seriously looking at multi-user, distributed workflows, and we would especially like _detailed_ feature requests that explain what you want, what you need, and what you can live without.
Here’s the feature request form:
https://www.adobe.com/go/wish———————————————————————————————————
Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Technical Support for professional video software
After Effects Help & Support
Premiere Pro Help & Support
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“We are seriously looking at multi-user, distributed workflows…”
That is FANTASTIC news.
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Don’t misinterpret “seriously looking” as a promise of any sort.
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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Technical Support for professional video software
After Effects Help & Support
Premiere Pro Help & Support
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Heya Chris, I was thinking of this https://aescripts.com/save-comp-as-project/.
HTH
RoRKAE Training in South East Asia. AE templates for sale and rental. Click here for more
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