@citizensam

Absolutely! New settings can be added to the “Render Settings” or “Output Module” through the existing After Effects tools located under the Edit>Templates menu. Once the new options are added, they should show up in the Templater panel once the “Load Settings & Module Templates” button is pressed.

As a quick side note, it might also be useful to use the module and render-settings reserved columns to set the output settings using information from the Data Source the project is using. As long as the data in these two columns match up with valid options in the “Render Settings” and “Output Module” options in AE, Templater should use them when each row is processed. This can be useful if we need to switch between different output modules on the fly.

Hopefully, that helps, but if you run into any issues, please feel free to get in touch, and we’ll do whatever we can to help out.

Thanks,

Jeff

@jeff Thank you Jeff. Taking one part of the custom name directly from AE was the stuff i was looking for, so i can use output column in google sheets that would be combined by Templater with AE’s compositions’ names, but its not a big deal. Just thought it might be possible, since plugin is all about automating stuff. If for some reason its hard to do, its not a big problem.

Hi there!

I’ve got the same issue due now. I’m working with a much smaller amount of comps, but they’re longer – from 1 to 1:30 minute, 3 comp in a row with updated data.

Up to 100+ changing texts.

So I’ve ran it in two different windows machines and both are slowing.

On first machine results went from 10 minutes to 37(in like 3rd time of rendering), on the second one 4:31 to 4:53 just in two renders.

Purging after job and clearing preview cache is on

@jasontcox we’ve also used something called gifsicle, which is a command line tool for optimizing gifs (homepage). What you do in this case, you render a version from AE’s render queue, then you do a post-render action to transcode to gif with ffmpeg and then compress with gifsicle. These event scripts require Templater Bot. You’ll need to add gifsicle and ffmpeg to your SYSTEM PATH.

Here’s an example of a script (Windows BAT file) that I’ve used. Feel free to use it as a baseline to remix for your own purposes. (No warranties implied)

@ECHO ON SET RENDER="%~1" SET RPATH=%~dp1 SET ID=%~n1 SET FRAMERATE="15" SET SCALE="0" SET COLORS="256" SET PALETTE="%RPATH%palette.png" SET FILTERS=fps=%FRAMERATE%,scale=%SCALE%:-1:flags=lanczos SET GIFOUT="%RPATH%gifs\%ID%.gif" SET GIFCOMP="%RPATH%gifs-lossy\%ID%.gif" SET FULLRES="%RPATH%full-res" SET GIFFINAL="N:\email-campaigns\newsletter" ffmpeg -v warning -i %RENDER% -vf %FILTERS%,palettegen=stats_mode=diff:max_colors=%COLORS% -y %PALETTE% ffmpeg -i %RENDER% -i %PALETTE% -loop 0 -lavfi "%FILTERS% [x]; [x][1:v] paletteuse=dither=bayer:bayer_scale=3" -vcodec gif -y %GIFOUT% gifsicle %GIFOUT% -O3 --lossy=200 --output %GIFCOMP% move /Y %RENDER% %FULLRES% copy /Y %GIFCOMP% %GIFFINAL%

@veteos

Thanks for letting us know what you found. This diagnosis aligns with our assumption that that error is caused by a logic problem with a Time Sculpting layer. Hopefully, this will help in troubleshooting this sort of problem if it comes up again in the future.

Thanks again!

@jeff Thanks a lot! And thanks for the link to the reserved column names. I couldn’t find that in the website but rushing with a project and learning in the way I’m sure I missed that…

Thanks again!

@amesdigital

Thanks for getting in touch with us. The scenario that you’ve described should be possible using Templater. In fact, with the correct setup, you shouldn’t need to edit the AE file directly. Using a few of Templater’s basic features, you should be able to control the text content and the composition selection entirely from your data source.

Swapping out the contents of a text field is one of the most basic and useful features of Templater. Once Templater is installed and connected to your data source of choice (Google Sheet, QUE Campaign, or local file), simply rename the layer to match the column/data point in question and apply the Templater Effect. Once that’s done, Templater should swap the text in the corresponding layer during the Preview or Render process.

As far as swapping out a composition, Templater has a reserved column named target that can be used to designate which .aep file Templater should load for each set of data. This should allow you to swap out the project file on the fly to whichever the end-user desires.

Finally, if you wanted to automate the process, you could always use Templater Bot to monitor your data source for new entries continuously. There’s another reserved column named render-status that Templater Bot searches for continuously. When a line of data is added with a render-status of “ready” Templater Bot will bring in the data and process the video.

Those are the basics, but if you have any other questions, please feel free to let us know.

Thanks!

@jeff AMAZING! Thank you for such a quick response! Got it working now. I was just able to pump out a list of 150 dealerships to Youtube ready MP4’s in just over 20 mins… Templater fricking rules. You can expect a new customer within a week or so!

@tok_tok

Let’s try moving the script to the “After layers update” event under “Layer Processing”. It’s possible that having it run at Data Retrieval may be too early to process the Work Area correctly. Give that a shot, and if you still run into problems, it might be easier if you could drop us a line directly at support@dataclay.com. Thanks!

@fg27 apologies for the long delay in responding. I’ve never seen that error in connection with Templater. Which version of AE and Templater are you using? What about any other 3rd party effects applied to layers? Are you replicating internally to the project to make new folders/comps within the existing project file, or are you replicating to individual AEP files for Media Encoder to render? We’d need to see more of a sample of the data and the full templater.log file. You can submit a support ticket with any relevant attachments.

Hi…I utilize a comparable methodology while making client docs. I start by archiving the fundamental item, then, at that point, add the varieties. I utilize contingent labels to distinguish content for a particular yield. I likewise make preparing materials utilizing a comparative methodology.

Assuming the variety is theme based, ie there is a distinction in subjects utilized in the material, I then, at that point, utilize diverse TOCs to construct the yield. Sometimes I utilize a mix of the two methods, for instance preparing material does exclude every one of the points so utilizes a seperate TOC, and has its own restrictive labels to control content inside the subjects.

I additionally use conditions for on the web/print renditions. The print form incorporates screen captures, yet I don’t utilize numerous screen captures for online conveyance (except if I need the client to see what the screen should resemble). Very little point having screen captures on the off chance that the client has the program open.

@johnsyounger

After doing a little digging, I don’t think that Adobe Media Encoder has the flexibility to do what you’re suggesting here. As near as I can tell, the Output folder must be different from the Watch Folder. This appears to be necessary since AME will grab any valid video file in the Watch Folder. So if the Output was the same as the Watch Folder, the rendered video files would end up being processed again, output to the Watch Folder, and then re-rendered over and over.

As for the Source files, I just don’t see any options provided by Adobe to delete them after the video has been processed. This appears to be a limitation of the software in general. Given these factors, I don’t think it’s going to be possible to customize AME to perform the way you’re describing. It might be possible to create a more complex render system using a third-party render software or a command-line incantation with some added scripting, but that’s going to be a much more involved process. Let us know if you have any additional questions, and we’ll do whatever we can to get you up and running. Thanks!

@johnsyounger

Absolutely! Any additional folders you add to the syntax in the output column will be created automatically when Templater runs. You can find more information in this article and if you have any other questions, please just let us know!

@pbretz Are all machines looking at the same worksheet within one Sheet? How many items were being queued at once on each machine?

Thanks Jeff! Looking forward to the next version of Templater.

@pbretz It’s probably difficult to do without some kind of math if your timeline is moving around a lot, but since you can pass data values to be arguments in an event script incantation, you could pass a time/timecode value into a script to extract key frames as stills using the above mentioned methods.

@darrencase also, it might be helpful to watch this video to see a demonstration of how comp swapping works, to hopefully make it clearer.

Previewing with Templater's Data Transport

@rens Unfortunately AE’s API access to the character palette is extremely limited, so your best bet would be to create a pre-job script that copies your master AEP and opens the project in AE, to run Templater off of the copy instead of the master. This will leave your master always untouched. In the instance that a missing glyph breaks one project, it won’t break all of the subsequent projects. You could also try running an ExtendScript that updates the font on that layer on the post-update event every time, but I think that could be more problematic.

Bot events.