Batch import process tool

[hayes3d]

Greetings,

I come to you guys in need of a tool that may already possibly exist, but I have not yet found it. We are in need of a batch import tool for After effects.

What I do is 3d Max work mainly. I am rendering out 6400 small movies. Each movie has 3 png sequences.

Our After effects guy has to import each movie (6 sequences) and create a folder with the same prefix as the sequence name.

Then he creates 2 comps inside of each folder (AE folder I am talking about) both with the same prefix name of the sequence, but with different suffix names. One would be "web", the other would be "thm". The comps would also be a different resolution as well. One is 528x278. the other is 78x58. The background color would be rgb 91,121,142

Finally it would grab all the filenames with the same prefix and add them to the folder with the same matching prefix.

This could possibly save us days if not weeks of work. A ui to edit settings right now is not necessary. I know maxscript a bit, but other than that we don't have any javascripters.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[byronnash]

That should not be too difficult. If you have some scripting experience(even maxscript) you should be able to figure this stuff out. Take a look at the "SmartImport.jsx script in your scripts folder. It shows file importing. The other stuff you mentioned is pretty easy too. The best bet is to try to get something going and post here when you get stuck on particular spots. Most of us are more than willing to help each other figure out specific issues, but not many have the time to script entire scripts for people unless they have a re-usable function(not implying you were asking for a free script necessarily). Alternatively, you could inquire among the scripters here to find someone who could write a custom script for hire.

[hayes3d]

Yeah I did look at that smartimport. And because of the way it imports (grabs the first image seq in a folder) I rewrote my batch render scripts. I could probably figure it out over time. Maybe this weekend. I am still a noob at scripting, started about 2 months ago with maxscript, but I have a fairly good teacher (paul neale) to help me out when I get stuck.

I will see what I can do on my end, and any help from the community is greatly appreciated.

Thanks Bryonnash