After Effects Batch Processing....

In early 2010, i had done some after effects batch processing. Purpose of documenting it here is to find it again, when needed. Also write down what exactly i learned and where i left it. So continuging this again in future is little easy and less time wasting.

I ending up creating two simple tools. Primary purpose of tools were

• producing lower thirds for some Content ( 1000 plus songs )
• producing template based programs, where motion designer has finalized templates and now they want huge data to be filled based on specific conditions (each day or each week) in template and render out.

In both of above cases, Content information was available in CSV format, from CONTENT Team. (Note, csv files are simply excel sheets containing data in tables. almost similar to XML files).

Usage Notes:

1. Artist can run these directly from interface ( after putting scripts in adobe scripts folder)
2. next is to give it CONTENT Folder, where all of Video files are stored
3. next is to give it CSV file, so it loads / checks content and give warnings about missing stuff.
4. At this point, tool expects, that artist has already opened relevant template. Artist Simply needs to pick what he wanted to output and hit Process Buttons. Pretty Straight Forward ...
5. as soon as artist, picks some item from csv files, it tells, it finds all relevant information.
6. for rendering , i have setup h264 mov preset, via script, and outputs in mov. later on requirement came from mpg2 and its implemented..

Tech Notes:

Adobe DOM Model is good. Simple and Stright Forward.
Adobe Srcripting IDE (ExtendScript) is super well designed and Tightly Integrated with apps, i m sure about AE, and hopefully its similar with others.
Currently Tools using a function for CSV Parsing Data from CreativeWorkflowHacks, so all credits goes to them for there super help. I am getting lot of help from this by directly using this.
I remember, that Artist using that tool, sent request that once paths are set, tools restarting should autoload those and locations should be stored with it. i remember, i wanted to add that, but left this at this very exact point.


Few Useful Links for AE Scripting Learning (via browsing other super cool scripts..)


http://www.redefinery.com/blog/
http://www.crgreen.com/aescripts/
http://www.aenhancers.com/ (forum)