[Dan Fredley]

That pertains to ScriptUI–you should probably read the Adobe Javascript Tools Guide, which explains it in depth.

Here’s the basic gist:

if (app.settings.haveSetting("name of setting", "sub name of setting")) // see if there are saved settings from a previous session
pal.grp.allGroups.pnl1.effectsList.selection = parseInt(app.settings.getSetting("name of setting", "sub name of setting")); // get the saved setting from a previous session and apply it to the path of that setting in the UI
pal.onClose = function() // Save current UI settings when user closes the palette
app.settings.saveSetting("name of setting", "sub name of setting", dfcpPal.grp.allGroups.pnl1.effectsList.selection.index); // save the current selection chosen in the DropDown menu upon closing

Look through redefinery’s scripts for examples:

https://www.redefinery.com/blog/

Dan Fredley

[Dan Fredley]

A lot of questions there, but I’ll try to address a few:

All three choices work with motion blur, but I would build it by animating the camera–stay away from scaling it.

To make it really easy on yourself, you can just build 1 comp with the camera animating all the way through the move with one piece of text. Then render the whole thing with another piece of text.

Create the text first, then make it 3D. Then create a new camera. Leave the text at the default position–in fact, lock it so it doesn’t move. Go to the end of your comp and set a position keyframe. Go the beginning of your comp and adjust the z-position of the camera until it’s as far back as you want to go. Duplicate the comp and change the text (or option drag your new text to the selected old text). Repeat. Render all 9 comps after your done.

Then in your video editor you can choose which parts you want to use to make it look like the text is getting closer to camera–which will inevitably change as you see it in sequence.

As long as you build your text (in Photoshop or something) as big as it will ever appear in camera (ie if your comp is 1920×1080 and you happen to want your text to fill the screen completely then build your text at 1920×1080.) Making the titles in AE and Illustrator will allow you to use the “continuously rasterize” checkbox and you’ll never have to worry about size and pixellation.

There’s no easy way to fix title safe in a bunch of comps, but if you do it my way with the camera, you can just fix the camera in one comp and paste the same camera into the other comps.

I would put your background in a pre-comp and then copy that single pre-comp into your 9 main comps–that way you can just change one to ripple through all of them.

Maybe start here:

AE Basics
https://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2010/01/getting-started-with-after-eff.html

3D basics (Animating a camera):
https://www.videocopilot.net/basic/#07

Dan Fredley

[Dan Fredley]

Try this script:

https://aescripts.com/batch-search-n-replace-paths/

Just replace the first part of the path that changed and the rest will be updated at the push of a button.

Dan Fredley

[Dan Fredley]

For what it’s worth, from Todd Kopriva of Adobe:

AdobeAE Twitter Conversation pt1
AdobeAE Twitter Conversation pt2

Dan Fredley

[Dan Fredley]

That feature wasn’t ready for release–they’re working on adding it I believe.

Dan Fredley

[Dan Fredley]

Are you looking for something like this?

rd_RenderLayers/

Dan Fredley

[Dan Fredley]

Very nice–good to know.

Dan Fredley

[Dan Fredley]

Kind of convoluted, but try this out:

poly_fix.aep

It might be better to use one of the following scripts:

TrackerViz
Tracker2Mask

Or this:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/1016514

Dan Fredley

[Dan Fredley]

Re-timing is normal and one of the most annoying parts of the job for me. We do scratch tracks, which help, but it’s never perfect. Plus script changes usually happen almost all the way up to the day of delivery. I use a few scripts to help me retime things:

rd_Scooter
rd_Shifter

Keeping your layers trimmed is essential as well. I use the following script to order my layers by in-point from the bottom up.

rd_KindaSorta

I’m sure there are a lot of other scripts that are helpful, but you’ll have to search around and experiment.

Dan Fredley

[Dan Fredley]

If it’s inside a precomp you can go to view>new viewer and it will lock the main comp viewer window so you can open the precomp and see the changes in both comps as you edit the text. That’s about it though.

Dan Fredley