[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Robert – my pleasure!

Hmm, so lets say you render ‘VIDEO_X.mov’ and it stays in the render queue as finished item. Even on CS6:
1. Right click on the finished item in the queue, with a filename ‘VIDEO_X.mov’;
2. Choose ‘Duplicate with File Name’.
3. It renders on top, without asking.

As for passing argument – one way or another it would be related with Extendscript execution. And for such relatively easy job, I don’t think its worth the hassle! 🙂

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.
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[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Don,

thanks for a clarification – indeed, I haven’t understood ‘linking’ aspect in first place!

Now with that clarified – lets say there are 10 layers, starting from top to bottom, 1 to 10. You select first 5, hit the button, then select another 5 (indexed 6 to 10) and hit the second button.

As a result:
1. Index 1 layer should be linked with 6th in such case, or vice versa?
2. What should happen if layers to be ‘linked’ with other layers, already has different parent?
3. What if selections doesn’t have the same amount of layers selected?

This should help to get this down the line. Cheers.

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.
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[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Pierre – nice handle of multiple sources to get this into workable solution!

What I am not 100% sure, whether you have a single text layer, with two lines in it, or two layers each/line of text? One way or another, if you want to have text boxes corresponding to each line width, you must break the text into multiple layers.

I would recommend to start without animations first, and build it on top. Starting pretty heavy complicates the process ☺ Or alternatively, you could consider the following – Boxer. I made this project with pretty much every possible dynamic scenario, growing from different locations, animated, etc – check it out if interested!

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.
Boxer – Dynamic Text Boxes Template with a Live Preview

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Brian, definitely possible to pull this off. Take a look at this plugin in particular:
https://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2016/03/new-plug-in-saber-now-available-100-free/

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.
Boxer – Dynamic Text Boxes Template with a Live Preview

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Lee – the only thing within AE I can think of is changing Quicktime to other format – as .mov with H.264 tend to cause problems as an obsolete codec of choice.

Looking at CS6 profiles – choose H.264 and render it to .mp4. Alternatively, you can do it lossless and then encode with Handbrake.

On a different note – sending it to AME and rendering as H.264 to .mp4 could be other way around.

Let us know how it turns out to be – but I have a feeling its due to Quicktime 🙂

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.
Boxer – Dynamic Text Boxes Template with a Live Preview

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Sara – it depends, whether you have grouped shapes inside the layers, which has stroke & not at all in the same layer.

If such condition is true, then looking for a scripting solution will be the fastest approach, in case if there are many layers.

Alternatively, in case if all shapes has strokes, you can select all ‘Shapes label’/comp, and change all in the comp instantly. This only applies if you haven’t changed label colors for different shape layers, during the process.

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.
Boxer – Dynamic Text Boxes Template with a Live Preview

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hey Bret, whats essential here, is how your lower third looks like. Please showcase an example to get a sense of it.

The reason why it is important – if you have a need to align text based on the direction and if there are more elements in common, then this will be a different story. Alternatively, if it’s a single line, it will be easier approach to handle.

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.
Boxer – Dynamic Text Boxes Template with a Live Preview

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Robert, thanks for your explanations, the part about ‘redundant importing’ made it complete sense.

On the other hand, here is what I think myself:

1. The most simplistic approach seems to be, instead of running a shell script – that designer, after adding item into render queue, would simply locate output direction and overwrites it on top. Few extra steps, which are in fact similar amount of time-costly, as running a bash (IMO!)
2. Alternatively, if some script in mind, instead of deleting an item completely, I think the better approach would be ‘rename’ and old output file, and then, render new output with original name. The main advantage you get here – previous version always available for comparison, in case if ‘lets get back to the older revision’ situation kicks in ☺

Think about like this – by script execution, new item (aka, comp) would be pushed to the render queue, and file renaming would be done automatically.

Well, at least now you have two different options to consider ! 🙂

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.
Boxer – Dynamic Text Boxes Template with a Live Preview

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Lee – could you make a screenshot of your render profile’s, Render Settings module with settings revealed?

CS6 was long back in the days – I assume Adobe Media Encoder was not yet bundled together with AE?

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.
Boxer – Dynamic Text Boxes Template with a Live Preview

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Hello Don, heres what needed here:

1. Please properly specify behaviour, by naming ‘layers’ and ‘comps’ where its applicable. Now there is a clash of definitions, where you say ‘layers in the project’ even though layers can be in compositions only, etc.
2. I tested the code and what it actually does – based on initial selection, add those comps into selected project items.
3. Your ‘new requirements’ are not clear – here is what you are saying. You want to select layers in the composition, and then, by selecting ‘other layers’ inside the same composition, link them with previously selected layers. What it would do is make copies of selected layers in the first place. Reason for that is ?

Cheers!

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.
Boxer – Dynamic Text Boxes Template with a Live Preview