[Dan Fredley]

I don’t believe it’s accessible through expressions, but I know it is through scripting:

app.project.activeItem.layer(1).effect("Paint").stroke.property("Brush 1").duration.value[0]

[Dan Fredley]

I’ve been having this problem as well. I don’t know if there’s another way around it, but I put this at the beginning of my code:
var debugPref = app.preferences.getPrefAsLong("Main Pref Section", "Pref_JAVASCRIPT_DEBUGGER");
if(debugPref == 1) {
app.preferences.savePrefAsLong("Main Pref Section", "Pref_JAVASCRIPT_DEBUGGER", 0);
app.preferences.saveToDisk();
app.preferences.reload();
}
Then this at the end:
if (debugPref == 1) {
app.preferences.savePrefAsLong("Main Pref Section", "Pref_JAVASCRIPT_DEBUGGER", 1);
app.preferences.saveToDisk();
app.preferences.reload();
}

[Dan Fredley]

File>Scripts>Scale Composition.jsx will get you to a certain point. But you might have to tweak a few things manually.

[Dan Fredley]

If all of the green lines are on one layer and the red shape on another layer. You can duplicate the red shape, put the duplicate above the green lines layer and set the track matte of the green lines layer to alpha. This will use the red shape as a “cutout.” There are a dozen different scenarios, so it might be better to see you timeline.

[Dan Fredley]

Try this:

myText = comp("Name of Comp").layer("Name of Layer").text.sourceText;
L = myText.length;

F=Math.round(time%1);
T=time*thisComp.layer("Controller Sliders").effect("Speed")("Slider")-thisComp.layer("Controller Sliders").effect("Start at")("Slider")*thisComp.layer("Controller Sliders").effect("Speed")("Slider");
D=thisComp.layer("Controller Sliders").effect("Start at")("Slider")+thisComp.layer("Controller Sliders").effect("Duration")("Slider");

if(T>L){(R=L)}else{R=T};
if(time>D){(E=0)}else(E=1);
if(time>D){(G=L-(time-D)*thisComp.layer("Controller Sliders").effect("Speed")("Slider"))}else(G=0);
if(F==1|((R0)|G>0&G<L){Fl="_";}else{Fl=" ";}

myText.substr(0,(E*R)+G)+Fl

[Dan Fredley]

This script “tricks” AE into setting the video preview device to “Computer Monitor Only”, but there seems to be no way to set the preference to a specific device, so you’ll have to use the above solution to switch back to your external video output:

{
app.preferences.savePrefAsString("MacOS Video Preview Pref Section", "Device", "Computer Monitor Only");
app.preferences.saveToDisk();
app.preferences.reload();
}

Including “Computer Monitor Only” in the first line of code really doesn’t matter–it basically sets the preference to an unknown device, forcing AE to default to “Computer Monitor Only” behind the scenes. I only wrote it out literally to show what the script is trying to do even though it doesn’t mean anything. If that makes sense. It gets you one step closer.

[Dan Fredley]

I don’t think it’s possible via ExtendScript or Applescript GUI scripting. You have to set it through the preferences in AE. But if you’re on a Mac you can go to System Preferences and add a custom keyboard shortcut under Adobe After Effects and just type “Video Preview…” for the menu item and then assign it the keyboard shortcut you want and it will open the “Video Preview Preferences” for you–saves you from having to go to the menu>submenu at least.

[Dan Fredley]

You can trash your preferences, but I would just grab the top of the “Mode” panel and drag it to the right of the “Switches” Panel. You can drag any of them around and right-click to hide or show panels. You can also drag in between the panels to change the widths–for example, the labels panel can shrink down to hide the color text.

[Dan Fredley]

For any future scripters looking for the solution to this problem, you need to use the .setValue([array of numbers]) method instead of a simple number assignment since there are two dimensions.

{
proj = app.project;
comp = proj.activeItem;
newName = "blah";
size = 100;
newLayer = comp.layers.addSolid([0,1.0,0], newName, size, size, 1);
newLayer.name = newName;
newMask = newLayer.Masks.addProperty("Mask");
newMask.inverted = false;
myMaskShape = newMask.property("maskShape");
myShape = myMaskShape.value;
myShape.vertices = [[size*0.25,size*0.25],[size*0.25,size*0.75],[size*0.75,size*0.75],[size*0.75,size*0.25]];
myShape.closed = true;
myMaskFeather = newMask.property("maskFeather");
myMaskFeather.setValue([15,15]);
myMaskShape.setValue(myShape);
}

[Dan Fredley]

I’m not sure about using exif data, but if the cameras have sound you can use PluralEyes:

https://www.singularsoftware.com/help/pluraleyes_pp/howto_pluraleyes_premiere.html