pt_SSA Karaoke Animator

Paul Tuersley · **Posted:** Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:07 am

umaier wrote:

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your excellent script!

Sadly, I seem to be encountering a show-stopper with it.

I am using After Effects CS3 in Vista Home Premium 32-bit. When I import an SSA file with some Chinese subtitles, it always halts on a line when it contains 16 or more Chinese characters. The Chinese characters are Unicode-encoded. As far as I can tell, there is no error in the SSA file.

The script just stops at the 16-or-more line (as if there are no more lines to process) and no error message comes up.

Am I making some sort of mistake, or is there a workaround I should apply in this situation (short of truncating lines with 16 or more characters?)

I'll look into it. Can you send me an example SSA file and a project with the result you're getting? Send to paul.tuersley@btinternet.com

Paul

ashithraj · **Joined:** Tue Mar 03, 2009 4:10 am **Posts:** 5

Paul Tuersley wrote:

This script imports karaoke subtitling data from Substation Alpha files (.ssa/.ass) and creates new text layers with user defined text animation. It requires After Effects 7.0 or later.

This major new update takes advantage of AE's Animation Preset system, giving you the ability to produce some seriously cool results! You can use effects, you can use the Wiggly Selector (see example below), and if you're using CS3 you can animate your text in 3D. I've added support for languages that flow from right to left. And there's now a User Guide pdf, which you'll find in the same folder as the script. I recommend you read it in order to get the most out of the script.

Download pt_SSAnimator_v2.zip

I am not able to download the file from the link. I get a file not found error. Is there something I am doing wrong?

Paul Tuersley · **Posted:** Wed Mar 18, 2009 8:38 am

ashithraj wrote:

I am not able to download the file from the link. I get a file not found error. Is there something I am doing wrong?

No, you aren't doing anything wrong. The server that hosts my scripts appears to be down at the moment. Hopefully it'll be working again soon. I've emailed you a copy of the script.

yaHzee · **Joined:** Wed Jan 28, 2009 6:07 pm **Posts:** 1

All right, I need some help, and being an AE Newbie, I might be doing something incredibly stupid.

Here's where I stand, I have my original video as well as the imported .ass script that's already gone through Paul's script in the same composition. Now how exactly do I get the timed karaoke onto the video? I have them in the same comp, but have no idea what to do (sorry I suck, I know), and after I get the timed karaoke onto the original video, do I just render them?

Apoal1 · **Joined:** Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:31 am **Posts:** 2

Hi,
Thanks you Paul Tuersley for your work on AE and SSA

:)

I've write this for delete text layers create by a previous preview before creating a new preview.
if you're lost in your presets collections and you need preview all before render a SSA,
you can insert this code at line 1130, i hope to have found possibles errors, if i didn't, delete!

Code:

      //remove text layers create by previous preview
      if (!(activeItem.numLayers == 0)){
         for (var old = activeItem.numLayers; old > 0; --old){
            var curLayer = activeItem.layer(old);
            if (curLayer instanceof TextLayer){
               var nameLayer = curLayer.sourceText.value;
               if (nameLayer == "hit me baby one more time "){
               curLayer.remove();
               }
            } 
         }   
      }

Gishdog · **Joined:** Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:21 am **Posts:** 2

First of all - thanks for what appears to be a really well thought out plugin.

I have two questions - the first - are there any tutorials out there for actually creating an SSA file? I'm using Aegisub and it appears to have quite a few features and excellent documentation but I'm curious what everyone else is using (tools and workflows). I have successfully created an SSA file and imported it, but I'm not sure how to actually create any of the syllable effects (right now it's just lines on and off instead of words/syllables). I have a feeling this is done with Aegisub's karaoke template system... but I wanted to make sure before I read an entire manual (not that I'm opposed to it - just under a tight deadline).

Second - Anyone have any ideas or workflows for adding a bouncing ball/icon using this plugin (or any other plugin)? I've had to do this in the past and it was a bunch of hand animation... I'd love to avoid tons of manual work this time around because I have 25 songs to create...

Any help is much appreciated and thanks again for such a great tool.

Gishdog · **Joined:** Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:21 am **Posts:** 2

A quick update - I was able to get syllables working out of Aegisub so that was cool... I still haven't found a good solution for a bouncing ball/icon other than to hand animate... ouch.

Paul Tuersley · **Posted:** Thu Apr 22, 2010 2:40 pm

There's no easy way to do the bouncing ball thing currently. It would have to be a new feature. I've already put in something that tries to calculate the centre of each syllable. If the first effect in an animation preset is a Point Control, it will set this value to the centre of each syllable. So that's the first step in calculating the bouncing ball's path.

If there was a "Add bouncing ball" checkbox. How would you imagine the ball's behaviour? Would it need options like bounce height, or controlling whether the ball pauses when it lands on a syllable?

Don't get your hopes up though. I wouldn't be able to do it any time soon, and I'm not sure there's the demand to make it worth the time it would take. If anyone else has any views on this, feel free to join in.

Paul

Tregithew · **Joined:** Tue May 04, 2010 6:24 am **Posts:** 2

Is there an easy way to make the script perform word wrap e.g. within a defined text box?

I'm using it to create karaoke subtitles for small children's songs and so the font has to be huge. Consequently each song phrase has to run over several lines on the screen.

As an alternative is there an easy way to get SSAnimator to convert \N in the ASS file into a \r (Carriage Return) in the text in AE? In Aegisub I can use \N to force a carriage return but SSAnimator just translates this into \N on the screen in AE. For example Aegisub turns "Jump \N Now" into
Jump
Now
but SSAnimator takes that and produces
Jump \N Now
in AE.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated!
Thanks for a brilliant script BTW. Attempting to do this without it would be a nightmare.

All the best,
John

Paul Tuersley · **Posted:** Thu May 20, 2010 2:24 am

I've updated the script to v2.1 (see first post for download link) with the following changes:

added CS5 compatibility (works in AE7 - CS5)
now interprets \N and \n as line returns
no longer fails when non-karaoke subtitles have +15 double byte unicode characters.
no longer fails if a karaoke highlight duration is zero.
no longer applies animation preset to non-karaoke subtitles.
no text layer is created if a syllable only contains a space.
no longer fails on unicode conversion errors.
removed undo behaviour to possibly speed up long imports.

@Tregithew - I've attempted to add the ability to correctly interpret /N line returns. Can you let me know if it's working for you.

@Gishdog - I've done some preliminary work on the bouncing ball functionality with some promising results. Stay tuned!

Tregithew · **Joined:** Tue May 04, 2010 6:24 am **Posts:** 2

Thanks very much Paul.

It does work with CS5 and seems to run substantially faster.

It does interpret \N correctly, however it leaves the '\' visible in AE so that "Sing and \N Jump" becomes
Sing and \
Jump

Paul Tuersley · **Posted:** Thu May 20, 2010 8:14 am

Ok, thanks. Could you send me a .ssa file to test it with? I don't have any examples that use "\N" or have any of the software that creates .ssa files. Send it to paul.tuersley@btinternet.com

Paul Tuersley · **Posted:** Thu May 20, 2010 3:10 pm

I've posted v2.2 which fixes the \N line return issue.

Paul Tuersley · **Posted:** Fri Dec 17, 2010 12:39 pm

I've posted an update to pt_SSA Karaoke Animator (v2.3) with the following changes:

- Added a bouncing ball option.
- Removed the old animation system. Now only works with animation presets.
- Built-in help and user guide to learn how to create your own presets.
- Includes some new built in presets.
- Various bug fixes.

Watch the tutorial video and download pt_SSAKaraokeAnimator from aescripts.com

krisztian922 · **Joined:** Sat Dec 25, 2010 2:50 pm **Posts:** 3

Hy

I just wanted to ask if is there any way to change the ball at the bouncing ball effect to something else? For example if i got a png pics. or something to make it jump like that?

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pt_SSA Karaoke Animator

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