aenhancers

I am extrememly new to AE. I have used Photshop and ImageREady for sometime, but it is not going to allow me to do what I want, so, I have AE now to help me out. I was told I could get a script to do automation, but I know absolutely no knowledge of scripting or where to look for it.

Ok, here is what I want to do. Don't laugh, it is a little silly. I make signature tags... sometimes in excess of 500 (same graphic, different names) I was told that I could make a script and use that to do the 500 names automatically attaching from a list of names I have, into the same gif graphic, saving individually.
So, I thought I would make the gif in Image Ready and bring it into AE to finish it up with the different names.
Any help or guidance on where to get such scripts and how to do it, would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Danielle

Ok, here is what I want to do. Don't laugh, it is a little silly. I make signature tags... sometimes in excess of 500 (same graphic, different names) I was told that I could make a script and use that to do the 500 names automatically attaching from a list of names I have, into the same gif graphic, saving individually.
So, I thought I would make the gif in Image Ready and bring it into AE to finish it up with the different names.
Any help or guidance on where to get such scripts and how to do it, would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Danielle

I'm not sure I understand what you mean? Do you mean reading a series of names from a text file, creating a comp for each name, a text layer in each comp with each name, and then rendering out the comp so you have 500 individual movies?
If that is what you mean, you can certainly script it. Could you clarify the exact process of what you want to do?

Alex

<<I'm not sure I understand what you mean? Do you mean reading a series of names from a text file, creating a comp for each name, a text layer in each comp with each name, and then rendering out the comp so you have 500 individual movies?
If that is what you mean, you can certainly script it. Could you clarify the exact process of what you want to do?

Alex>>


Yes, I would like to do as you said, with the scripting to including going down a list of names and inserting each name automatically into the comp and saving it again as a gif. Saving a total of 500, each having a different file name to inlcude the name that was added into the comp.
Is is possible to save as a gif? I tried the other day and I couldn't. I may be looking in the wrong program (AE) to do what I want. Image Ready doesn't allow automation though...
I just got wintask and thought I may be able to figure a script out in that if I knew the process of AE, but I am having difficulty at this point.

If AE isn't the program to use, do you recomment one. The gif's I use are all animated.
Thanks, Danielle[/url]

better2dae wrote:<<reading a series of names from a text file, creating a comp for each name, a text layer in each comp with each name, and then rendering out the comp so you have 500 individual movies? >>

Well, I suppose you could look into Photoshop scripting and/or actions.

I think that with AE you could do this, but you have to realize you will have to get down and dirty with scripting.
I can recommend a few leads for you to follow, but don't personnaly have time to write a custom script.
What you can do is take existing code from similar scripts and try to put them together. You will, however, have to be sligthly familiar with basic javascript syntax.

The first part of what you want to do could be done via a good tutorial you can find on Dan Ebbert's site, http://www.motionscript.com
Go to the scripting section, and in there find the case study 2. That will be your way into getting AE to read from a text file and create text layers. You will probably have to tweak it so that it creates a new comp for each text layer.
For the rendering part, you can create an output module that will create animated gifs with your desired settings.
To have AE render your comps with the correct settings you have to look at the scripting render automation capabilities. Check the scripting guide, I think around pages 11, 12,13 etc... for guidance on that.

Anyways, if this is all too complicated, maybe someone one the forum will help you out with an example script that you could tweak.

Good luck

Alex

Thank you. I will give it a try.
Danielle

I have a script I posted in the scripts library that does something similar to what you need. http://aczet.free.fr/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=58 I have also done something like that with photoshop scripting. It will definitely require some work to get it tweaked to your preferences.