[Rob Frese]

Dan! Yes! Perfect! Exactly what I needed.

Wow, I didn’t know Dan Ebberts would be answering my question. That’s pretty freaking cool.

[Rob Frese]

Actually just figured this out — run this script from After Effects and it’ll close AE and reopen the same project that was open when it closed. Only tested this on Windows 7 / AE CC 14. Note that this script will open and close ESTK while it’s running (it has to run itself FROM ESTK, not from AE).


// get current AE project, close AE, then reopen that same project
var bt = new BridgeTalk ();
bt.target = 'estoolkit'
bt.body = 'var result; var bt0 = new BridgeTalk(); bt0.target = "aftereffects"; bt0.body = "app.project.file;"; bt0.onResult = function(resObj){result = resObj.body}; bt0.send(); $.sleep(1000); var theFile = new File(result); aftereffects.quit(); $.sleep(1000); theFile.execute();'
bt.send();

// quit ESTK (opened as a result of above)
var bt2 = new BridgeTalk();
bt2.target = 'estoolkit'
bt2.body = 'app.quit();'
bt2.send();

[Rob Frese]

I hear you — I want this feature too. Esp for me when I do lipsyncing and am constantly rendering and re-rendering tons of audio / animations, my RAM fills up quickly and I need to close and relaunch AE a lot (purge command is NOT the same as fully closing and starting AE).

I’m trying to do this via scripting. I can get it to work when I launch the script from ExtendScript Toolkit, but if I launch the script from AE, AE just crashes.

This is the current script. I’m trying to figure out a way to get AE to launch the script outside of itself, so it won’t crash, but not sure if that’s possible.

var thefile = new File(*whatever project file I want the script to re-open*);

aftereffects.quit();
$.sleep(3000)
thefile.execute();

[Rob Frese]

In case anyone’s still interested I have figured out a workaround for this — you basically put multiple scripts into one script file (let’s call that your “container script”) and add “if (ScriptUI.environment.keyName == ) {}” and define the keyboard shortcuts for each sub-script in the container script, then make ALL of those shortcuts launch the container script in the keyboard shortcuts file. When you use one of the keys the container script will determine which script you’re trying to launch.

I might be getting the scriptUI.environment language a little wrong (it’s not in front of me right now) but if anyone’s interested I can post a more detailed description.

Maybe I’m the only AE use who uses a ton of keyboard shortcuts / scripts.

[Rob Frese]

Thanks for the reply. I agree that Audition is far far far superior to Premiere for tweaking / fixing audio, but for getting a cut together of dialogue (timing wise) Audition is severely clunky and lacking. Multitrack sessions are a pain to maneuver. It’s like trying to edit video in After Effects — a waste of time. The file manager doesn’t even have an option for folders. Seriously?

It seems as if Audition is intended to fix individual clips of files, and not to be used for actual audio editing. I thought they were trying to compete with ProTools? Guess not.

[Rob Frese]

I’m in the same boat as you and it seems nobody wants to comment on this / admit that Audition sucks for this type of thing. Audition is clunky for those of us used to NLEs where you can blaze around with keyboard shortcuts. Audition lacks keyboard shortcuts for many basic basic things. It’s great for hardcore audio tweaking and such, but so is ProTools, and ProTools lets you dance around without ever touching the mouse. Audition, not so much.

I’m cutting together dialogue for an animation myself and I’m sticking with Premiere — it’s clearly not built for audio, but I can move around so much faster and stay so much more organized (re: organized, you can’t even group files in audition file browser into folders — what?!?!)

[Rob Frese]

Thanks for the response.

Do you mean pull my original media sources into a dynamically linked AE comp? That seems like a waste of RAM/CPU — having the computer read the dynamic link just to read a source media file.

What I’m essentially trying to do is create a bunch of comps in AE, then export proxy-quality renders of those comps, bring them into Premiere Pro and edit them, then once the edit is locked replace all of those AE “proxy clips” with the actual AE comps via dynamic link.

The new Render & Replace feature in Premiere Pro 2014.1 does not accomplish this — you can only render and replace individual clips in a timeline. I’m talking about a render/replacing a master clip in the project panel that will be chopped up into multiple edits among multiple PP sequences.

The other option is just replacing my AE proxy clips with lossless renders from AE — that’s fine and all, I was just seeing if there’s a way to skip that step.

Dynamically linked clips just bog down the system and are too slow. People always say “just get a faster computer” but that’s not helpful. Even Adobe has conceded this with the new render/replace feature — I just wish that feature worked project wide, not just on individual clips in a single timeline. What if you want to use that clip in multiple timelines? You have to keep render/replacing? Seems like a lost opportunity.

[Rob Frese]

Is there an answer to this — I’m very curious. I want to use the exact same workflow, but there seems to be no way to replace footage with already-created After Effects Comps.

It seems you can replace specific clip instances in the timeline, but I’m talking about replacing footage in the project panel and affecting all instances — similar to the “Replace Footage” command, except using an AE comp instead of a video file.

[Rob Frese]

Thanks for the suggestion, Walter.

I’m working on a mini-ft_toolbar like script that I can launch with a keyboard shortcut, then map mnemonics/keyeventlisteners to shortcuts that will launch specific scripts. This in order to collapse some of my scripts and make room for more.

Don’t really see the point in AE limiting keyboard shortcuts to the first 20 scripts — putting in a feature request for more in the future.

[Rob Frese]

I’m using AE CC and this still happens a lot.

It’s inconsistent. Sometimes I rename a layer and the expressions update. Sometimes I rename a layer, the expressions don’t update and break and I have to manually go in and edit each expression to reflect the new layer name.

What gives? Why does it work sometimes and not other times? Is there some weird thing I have to have checked to make that happen?