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  • Change logs of Dataclay software releases, known issues, and promotions

    30 Topics
    31 Posts
    The Dataclay team has released Templater version 3.7.3, which addresses some bugs that were present in Templater 3.7.2 and introduces a few improvements. Thanks for your patience. Enjoy and Happy Rendering! WHAT’S NEW IN 3.7.3 Upgraded the licensing framework for the Windows version of Templater. Fixed a minor spelling error in the Spot Check Preferences dialog. BUG FIXES Fixed an issue that caused Templater Trials to show as expired even if the user had never used the plugin.
  • Questions, answers, and discussions about data sources compatible with Templater.

    61 Topics
    218 Posts
    @R1ot Working with the Essential Graphics panel and Templater can be a bit daunting at first, as it’s a very unique workflow. Let me see if I can describe how we might set up a project in the way you described, and hopefully, that will be enough to get things moving in the right direction. For this example, I’m going to refer to our main AE comp as “Main Project”. The first thing we’ll want to do is locate the properties we want to adjust and drag them into the Essential Graphics Panel. For this example, let’s say we have an image layer named “picture”. We’ll want to open the Transform section of the properties and drag the “Scale” and “Position” properties into the EGP. Once we’ve got those properties in our EGP window, we’ll want to rename them to something that’s easy to reference in our Google Sheet. For now, let’s rename “Image Scale” to just “scale” and “Image Position” to “position”. From there, let’s create a new comp in AE and edit it so that the name is surrounded with double curly braces, like {{Comp1}}. The double curly braces will instruct Templater that this will be the default comp to process when it comes time to export. After that, we’ll want to drag our “Main Project” comp into the {{Comp1}} comp and rename it. For this example, I’m going to rename this comp to “assembly” (with no quotes). After that, we’ll want to drag the Templater Settings Effect onto our “assembly” comp so that Templater knows which EGP settings to adjust. We can verify that everything is set up correctly by opening the “assembly” comp and confirming that we have both the Templater Settings Effect and an Essential Properties section that contains our scale and position values. Now, we’ll want to head over to our Google Sheet to add the columns to control the data. The names should be formatted like this: layername@[property name]. So, for this example, we’ll want to add a column for our scale property: assembly@[scale], and one for our position property: assembly@[position]. Once that’s done, we’ll need to populate those columns with values. However, if we take a look at the scale and position values in our project, we’ll see that they both contain two values, separated by a comma. That means that the value for those properties is an array, and that will need to be reflected in our data source. So, for example, in our assembly@[position] column, we’ll need to add something like this: [100,100]. That should instruct Templater to set the value for the position EGP property to 100,100. This is a bit counterintuitive when it comes to the scale property, but since AE adjusts the horizontal and vertical scale with two different, matching values, we’ll still need an array for that property as well. Finally, we should be able to preview the {{Comp1}} project and see the results reflected in the Essential Properties values. As a quick side note, this won’t affect the linked properties in the “Main Project” comp, only in the “assembly” precomp in {{Comp1}}. Hopefully, that all makes sense, but if you have any questions, you can let us know here or get in touch with us directly at support@dataclay.com. Happy Rendering!
  • Topics related to Dataclay QUE, the optimal datastore with an API for Templater

    18 Topics
    78 Posts
    @surabhiv I know this is an older post, but wanted to reply here in case a user might land here after searching. In July of 2025, we launched webhooks for QUE. This opens up many opportunities to integrate third-party services with automation pipelines that use QUE as a central data source. We’ve documented QUE’s webhook service which details everything that is available as of now. We are working toward implementing a security scheme so that you “consumers” can verify that webhook calls made from QUE are genuine. For now, you can begin to setup flows that suit your needs.
  • Topics related to Dataclay Projector (now available in Beta). Transcode, deploy, and archive your media outputs to streaming providers and cloud storage.

    0 Topics
    0 Posts
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  • Questions, answers, and discussions about preparing After Effects projects for processing by Templater.

    124 Topics
    444 Posts
    @ariestav said in Out Point Trims To -> Out Point not working on jpg files?: @1337err It might be due to images not having an inherent duration or FPS value which footage assets do. Does the same thing happen if you precompose the still image layers into pre-comp layers? Good idea, I’ll do this!
  • Questions, answers, and discussions about batch rendering and replicating re-versioned After Effects compositions.

    39 Topics
    147 Posts
    @chefsache We’re so happy that you’ve decided to give Templater a try. From the description of your workflow, it sounds like QUE and Zapier are the perfect drivers for your project. As far as the question about forms with no data, it sounds like a logic issue with how Templater deals with a lack of information in your Data Source. Typically, Templater will swap out assets and media for any layer that has the Templater Settings Effect applied with a corresponding entry in the Data Source. However, if there is no corresponding data, Templater skips the layer in question, just as you’ve described. What we probably need, to get things working correctly, would be to add a step in Zapier that replaces fields with no data with either a “blank”, placeholder, or flag value. The easiest way would probably be to use a feature of Templater known as Flags. In this scenario, we’d replace the missing value with {{off}} or [[off]]. Those special values would instruct Templater to turn off the visibility of the layer, hiding it from the output. You can find more information about flags on this web page from our support website. Another option would be to add a “blank” or placeholder value. This could be a single space in the case of text layers or a blank PNG file for images. This would let Templater swap the assets, but for something that wouldn’t be visible in the final output. Finally, we could also just pass through a blank value. Once that was done, we could go to the Templater Preferences > Footage and check the “Consider empty cells or null values as faulty” box. Then we could choose what we want to happen using the options in that window. This can allow you to instruct Templater on how to deal with any missing or faulty values that get passed along. As for the Zapier side of things goes, there are a few ways to accomplish this, but you’ll probably want to add what’s called a “Formatter” between the data collection from Jotform and the upload to QUE. You might have to do some experimentation, but I believe that this “Formatter” step can be used to set a “Default Value” so even if no data is entered, a value will still be passed along to QUE. Hopefully, that all makes sense, but if you have any other questions, let us know, and we’ll be more than happy to help out. Happy Rendering! Jeff
  • Questions, answers, and discussions about Templater's automation extensibility and integration.

    17 Topics
    55 Posts
    @RyanB Glad to hear that you were able to track down the issue. I did some research and spoke with some of our devs, and I can confirm that all write operations for both replication and render actions should be completed before any “post_cmd_job” actions are run. If you have any other questions, please feel free to let us know. Thanks, Jeff
  • Examples of Templater used by creative studios, broadcast, and application developers.

    2 Topics
    2 Posts
    David Graff, John Wirtz, and Brian Kaiser founded Hudl in 2006 with the goal of capturing and adding value to every moment in athletics. Using their computer science backgrounds, the University of Nebraska sports fanatics built a platform that would enable coaches and players to review, annotate, and share game video across multiple platforms and devices. Their hard work paid off. With 130,000 sports outfits subscribing to their software worldwide—including NFL, NHL, and NBA teams, and an exponentially growing number of high school teams signing up every season—Hudl recently secured $72.5 million in a single Stage B funding round for a total valuation of $250 million. They expect this fall to be their busiest ever with 30,000 varsity high school football teams subscribing at a minimum of $800 per year for their cheapest package! Several times a year, Hudl holds a company-wide event called Skunkworks, modeled after the fabled Lockheed Martin creative think-tank that produced some of the company’s most innovative solutions. One of their teams wanted to address the “cookie-cutter” sameness of the popular highlights feature favored by athletes and recruiters. Developers Casey Batemen, Joel Hensley, and Kelly Herrington discovered Templater Bot, and found the best turnkey solution for making their highlight reels standout. Hudl successfully integrated Templater Bot into its robust video automation platform, and will soon roll out the Video Goodness product feature — enabling every team or athlete to have their own customized ESPN-quality highlight reel created in just a few minutes. The feature is eagerly awaited, and should make a huge splash when it goes live just in time for football season. Templater Bot’s coding-friendly API and ability to turn huge amounts of data into highly customized and individualized bulk renders allowed Hudl developers to clear some of their most challenging implementation and logistical hurdles. We are blown away by Hudl’s ingenious use of Templater in their pipeline and wish them continued success! We look forward to partnering on more solutions in the future.
  • Questions, answers, and discussions about deploying Templater Bot onto servers

    40 Topics
    172 Posts
    @Tom10 @Jeff @Maris @Jon Had the same issue for our own custom renderfarm. When starting AE over cmd you can actually add a “-noerr” flag that suppresses this popup. So now we always start AE over a .bat file with this flag: start afterFX.exe -noerr
  • General topics related to Dataclay products

    18 Topics
    52 Posts
    @lalimec Apologies, it appears that the previous link has expired. I’ve gone ahead and set up a new invite that should be valid, and updated this post. If you run into any issues joining, let us know. Thanks!