[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Vuong, there is no definite answer on how specifically they do it – as there are many ways to achieve this sort of personalisation. Natively within AE, using Extendscript, or with Dataclay’s Templater for example.

Thus to answer your question on how you could do it on your own, here are few tips:
1. First of all, make sure to create composition for logo, which suits all cases, and only requires auto-resizing when asset is replaced. See here: https://youtu.be/XPWvy2kff8A
2. Make sure asset is always set in the center, thus you can safely replace it autonomously:
https://youtu.be/8CkpIfGoZI8

its so happen to be, that above links are to both of my tutorials, as I think these techniques are crucial to getting started with automation of things, independently from GUI.

Above will make your template robust. Then, its time for some semi-automation or automation.

1. By simply duplicating assets folder N times (for N clients) where .aep is, and replacing logo file in OS level, you will already create unique projects, which could be rendered. But its a semi-automated process – good thing that you don’t need to tweak .aep manually. With a good project setup, then you can just move .aep into watch folder and video will be outputted.
2. Who process could be automated, A to Z, based on prepared template. Eventually, what you would be doing, is either:
a) Creating copies of .aeps with replaced asset inside .aep.
b) Depending on project structure, could create duplicates of target comp, where all bulk comps could be created. This would require extendscript.

Above examples could be also turned into fully-automated approach, with some additional scripting. Yet, they are fully native and doesn’t require additional tools nor extra costs involved. For the scope as you described, its fair enough choice !

Let me know if you have further questions, happy to discuss. Cheers!

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[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Kyle, this is surely possible and is relatively simple to achieve.

Few things:
1. Where images will be inside the project? Whether its a folder, root, etc. I suggest placing all of them into a folder.
2. When images are placed into the comp, what are their sizes, in relation to the comp resolution? Is resizing/fitting needed? If yes, to fit the comp, or fully fill?
3. Images would be static, one ends where other starts?
4. As a suggestion, I would always recommend to get rid of spaces in file names. Its just makes life easier, without encoding/decoding issues at all. But not a must – just my suggestion for the future, as well as personal preference:)

Cheers.

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Crystal, few ideas and suggestion from my end:

1. It is wise to use space-separators instead of spaces in file names, thus then you don’t need to bother much about spacing compatibilities, especially cross-os. (But I get a problem of ‘Program Files’ (: )
2. Buut, you shouldn’t do replacement of encoded characters in a string, as its not reliable (if there will be more encoded chars than spaces alone, solution will come shprt). Instead, using decodeURI(string), when string is built – all you need to do is generate a new file path, from a string:

var yourNewFilePath = new File (decodedStringPath)

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[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Tlneke, could you please also share a phrase which gets lost? Just in case it relates to specific character count, testing this with exactly the same phrase would be the best. Cheers!

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[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Tom, in a worst case scenario what you could do – open all comps and autocrop them manually.
1. Open all comps.
2. Do your shortcut for Autocrop.
3. Click Ctrl/command + W to close active comp.
4. Repeat this quite fast with shortcuts available on hand.

Then comment-out this line:
processFolderCompsAutoCrop(curFolderSelection) //Autocrops comps in the folder

And at least you would get all comps exported to their new auto-cropped sized frames.

Basically the problem here is that AutoCrop in this way as I made it, is able to crop ONLY the last comp, even though all of them being made active. I am sure there are other ways calling that button, which I am not aware of. Thus maybe someone else can chime in (BTW, I made a test on Mac, in case it behaves differently on PC ! )

Cheers!

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[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Just case – if not a casual line break is added – the ‘r’ regex won’t work in those cases. You need to take into account this in case return carriage is used: ‘\x03’

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[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Tom, you are too kind for me, but thanks, appreciate it!

Below is a script, which ALMOST does what is needed, with a few sidemarks.

How to run it:
1. Put all requires comps in a folder in project panel.
2. Select that folder.
3. Run the script.

What DOESN’T work:
1. AutoCrop doesn’t seem to reflect the current activeItem, thus some different approach is needed, either to refresh the state or hit the button in a different way.
2. Due to the above frames are not properly exported as well.

But with some tweaks here and there this should be made to work. I separated loops into two separate functions, due to the fact that some delay might be needed in the stack, to make it work as expected. However, that didn’t helped.

Tried adding sleeps and delays to make sure processes happens to successfully finish, but still no luck there either. Anyone has an idea what is missing here? Cheers!

/*
Script to export frames from comps, with AutoCrop 3.1.1
*/

//Constants
var PROJ = app.project,
AEP_FILE = PROJ.file,
ROOT_LOCATION = AEP_FILE.parent,
ROOT_LOCATION = createFolder(ROOT_LOCATION, "exported_frames"),
FRAMES_EXPORT_PATH = ROOT_LOCATION.toString(),
COMP_TIME = 0; //Timestamp in composition for frames exporting

app.beginUndoGroup("");

var curFolderSelection = PROJ.selection[0]; //Selected a SINGLE folder in project panel, containing ONLY compositions

processFolderCompsAutoCrop(curFolderSelection) //Autocrops comps in the folder
exportCroppedCompFrames(curFolderSelection) //Exports frames from comps in folder

app.endUndoGroup();

function processFolderCompsAutoCrop(curFolderSelection){
var curComp, autocropButton;
for (var i=1; i <= curFolderSelection.numItems; i++){
var curComp = curFolderSelection.item(i);
curComp.openInViewer();
autocropButton = standardCrop;
autocropButton.notify();
}
}

function exportCroppedCompFrames(curFolderSelection){
var curComp, compName;
for (var i=1; i<= curFolderSelection.numItems; i++){
var curComp = curFolderSelection.item(i);
curComp.openInViewer();
compName = curComp.name;
curComp = curFolderSelection.item(i);
exportCompFrames(curComp, compName)
}
}

function exportCompFrames(curComp, fileName){
var filePath = FRAMES_EXPORT_PATH + "/"
var saveFile = new File(filePath + "/" + fileName + ".png");
curComp.saveFrameToPng(COMP_TIME, saveFile);
}

function createFolder(directory, folderName) {
var osFolder = new Folder(directory.toString() + "/" + folderName + "/");
var statusMessage;
if (!osFolder.exists) {
osFolder.create();
statusMessage = "Folder created."
} else {
statusMessage = "Folder exists."
}
return osFolder;
}

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[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

In addition to what Filip recommended, I would suggest the following:
1. Keep every bar / shape layer, for easier contents access.
2. In order to easily duplicate contents, set every following layer’s Y position to (index+1) + [some slider value], in order not to require repositioning them manually.

~ Thus, create a null layer in the comp, call it “controls”;
~ Apply Slider expression controller to a null, call it “yPadding”;
~ Duplicate original bar shape layer;
~ Apply expression to Y position (Separate dimensions)
thisComp.layer(index+1).transform.yPosition + thisComp.layer("controls").effect("yPadding")(1)

Duplicating top bar in the project panel’s list will move them down in Y automatically.

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[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Tom,

thanks for clarifying! Few more things:
1. For simplicity, can we pre-assume all required comps will be in a single folder, which you would select in a project panel?
2. Where exported images should be stored, what location?
3. Can you provide a sample structure of comp names if it is consistent of some sort?
4. Are you using ‘Auto Crop’ option (the first button in the panel) or Crop Duration?

Button triggering works, thus I will help you out on this one once above is covered (if it is still in questions, of course, let me know). Cheers!

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[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Ellie, glad to hear you been able to figure this out, and thats for a heads up! Yet sometimes the change of tint might make color-matching off in those ‘shifting/interpolation’ moments, so use color sampling with precautions !

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