If you don't need to be able to edit the text again, I believe you could use the discovery of the undocumented executeCommand() to convert a text layer to masks and then have the script move each mask to its own layer. The tricky part here would be for glyphs that are composed of more than one mask.

setProxy() expects a single argument of type File. As written, there are two tokens in the parameter list (a bare word and a string literal). The parser is expecting the list to end with a ')' after the token 'file', which itself doesn't mean anything. I believe you are looking for this, instead: se...

JavaScript is an interesting language in this regard. I haven't seen any 2.0 implementations of the language in the wild. Yes, it sometimes feels "nasty" to use dynamic typing, but it also has its advantages. I find myself using some sort of Hungarian notation to make up for the lack of ty...

Unfortunately, this is not quite as easy as it sounds. If you go through the mathematics of it, the problem is hidden somewhere in there: For any four points in the image plane, there are at least two solutions for the distance of each of those four points along the vector to the camera, thus severa...

Fascinating. I'll have something to look forward to whenever I get around to upgrading from 6.5.

Am I to presume this works equally well when the text in the layer extends beyond the bounds of the comp?

Yes, TextInfo probably will return the height and width of the entire comp when you apply an effect that renders to the entire comp area if TextInfo comes later in the effects stack. Possible workarounds: place TextInfo first in the effects stack, apply the other effect(s) to an adjustment layer, us...

Darkmoon_UK: I haven't been doing very much work in AE lately, so I haven't looked at it in a very long time and I had just thrown it together on a whim. I suppose I ought to look at it seriously, at some point. I remember some odd behaviors, like not being able to edit the text reliably with my plu...

Yes nab, that is essentially what my plug-in does, hence the limitation about text larger than the comp size or off the edge of the comp. I had thought about writing a plug-in that would get the masks from the text and then find the max and min verts. That might work, but probably would be unduely c...

The paramter to add() should be a reference to the object, not the string of its name. So, for that third line, try:

var newSolid = tempComp.layers.add(tempSolid);

In my VolumeLight.jsx script, I wrote a little function that probably could be tweaked to fit your purpose: addBlackSolid(). Essentially, this just looks for an existing solid that meets the specs I needed, and if it finds it, it adds it to the given composition. Otherwise, it creates the needed sol...

Two words: Text Properties.

Does my FTPConnection from a while back help at all? It could stand some reworking, surely, and there is some functionality that I haven't gotten around to adding. I'm not sure what my time will be like, but let me know if there are any suggestions or requests. (Also note that I'm still on 6.5.)

Unfortunately, AE's native scripting capabilities do not provide access to pixels. Of course, a plug-in could be written to achieve the effect you desire or a third-party tool (i.e. Profound Effects' Useful Things) might help. Based on the description of the effect you wish to achieve, I think that ...

Well, a script would not be able to do this dynamically. That would require an expression, but expressions cannot access mask vertices, unfortunately. You could write a script that would generate position keyframes for the layers once the mask has been animated. I'll refer you to my CreateShape scri...

The plug-in is actually deceptively simple and I still find it to be of little practical use. I can provide the source if you (or someone else) would like to build it for a Mac. I was hoping for improved scripting support for Text Layers in AE7. While there are many other advantages to 7, I think th...