[Walter Soyka]

Maybe try this script:
https://aescripts.com/copymask2layer/

[Walter Soyka]

Neither CC Force Motion Blur nor the Warp Stabilizer are GPU-accelerated effects, but both are pretty heavy effects. I don’t think upgrading your GPU will give you the results you’re looking for. You’re probably better off tweaking your workflow (previewing at lower resolutions, previewing with skipped frames, temporarily turning heavy effects off, pre-rendering or proxying, etc.).

GPU-accelerated plugins/effects have a little badge next to their names (a play triangle icon with three speed lines). You can also find a table showing every built-in effect and its support for multi-frame rendering, GPU acceleration, and different color depths here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/effect-list.html

[Walter Soyka]

You don’t need the script editor to save or install this in Ae.

You can just rename the file Fast-Switch-Motion-Blur.jsx (instead of Fast-Switch-Motion-Blur.txt), then use “File > Scripts > Install ScriptUI Panel…” to install it.

[Walter Soyka]

I don’t think you can retrieve the labels. You’ll probably just have to consider them enumerated values.

[Walter Soyka]

I don’t think H.264 in AVI is well-supported.

If space is the issue, I think you have a few options:

1. Render to ProRes 422 from After Effects. It’s high quality, and compresses about 5:1 vs. lossless. You can always compress to H.264 in an MP4 container later with Media Encoder.

2. Click the “Queue in AME” button in the render queue instead of the “Render” button. Ae 2020 can’t render directly to H.264/MP4, but Media Encoder can. Use one of the H.264 presets in Media Encoder.

2. Stay on After Effects 2020 and get the third-party plugin AfterCodecs, which will allow you to render to H.264 in an MP4 container directly from the Ae render queue.

3. Upgrade to the current release of After Effects (2023), which supports rendering directly to H.264/MP4 natively.

[Walter Soyka]

Create a null, make it a 3D layer, and position it at the focal point you want to fly around. Position your camera, then make its parent the 3D null. Animate the rotation of the null, and the camera will orbit your focal point.

[Walter Soyka]

There are no options for customizing how Ae collects files. I think you’d have to replace the Collect Files function with your own custom script to enforce the naming conventions you’d like.

[Walter Soyka]

When you promote a layer to 3D, how it appears is based on its position and orientation as well as the camera’s position and orientation. If you move the camera away from its default position, this will show as a jump like you see.

I wrote a script a few years back to promote 2D layers to 3D, preserving their apparent positioning:

http://www.renderbreak.com/2014/07/after-effects-script-keen_3dlayertools/

[Walter Soyka]

Because visibility (eyeball) cannot be controlled by expression, it cannot be driven (directly) by Essential Graphics.

I’d suggest working around this by building out all your different cameras and eyeballing them off. Add one more camera that will actually view your scene. For each camera property, add an expression that looks at the dropdown selector to choose a reference camera, then link that main camera to the same property on the referenced camera. Make sense?

[Walter Soyka]

Sorry to be dense, but I don’t understand exactly what you’re going for. What do you have, how’s it built, and what are you trying to achieve?