Automating my AE(CS4) composition workflow?

This may be a very basic process and if so I apologize in advance. I have a workflow for doing certain comps in AE. I use alot of keyframes and they are very repetative. Meaning I use alot of the same comp settings, keyframes etc in each comp BUT they do occur at different places in each individual comp timeline. I find myself working on 20-30 comps and placing the same comp settings, type of keyframes for each, thus pretty much the same process over and over (again, they do occur at different times so I can't just cut n paste keyframes from the first comp to the rest, or can I?) Is there such a thing as a comp template or something I can build/save that lays down the foundation of my comp that I can then tweak.
I'm taking sports footage for example; football plays. I pick a spot in the footage to freeze, highlight the player, then resume play. I do a new comp for each play/piece of footage. If there were some type of template I could drop footage into that places all the same keyframes I use and then have the ability to move them around to where I need them, would be awesome. It's very time consuming to do alot of the same things over and over for each comp. Any feedback is much apreciated!
Dave~

If you have certain template compositions that you would like to reuse, consider saving them in a project and then importing that project into each project that you're working on. Then you can have a library of resources in your Project panel for reuse. You could also look into template projects. See "Projects".
At the more fine-grained level, if you have certain sets of effects and keyframes that you use a lot, consider saving your own animation presets.

Similar Messages

Applescript works in Automator but not as Application workflow

I have a pretty simple Application workflow in automator that runs this applescript:
set front_app to (path to frontmost application as Unicode text)
tell application front_app
activate
set bounds of window 1 to {0, 0, 1280, 800}
end tell
as you can see all it does is it maximizes the current window. it works when I run the script from within automator, but when i save it as an application and run that it says the applescript errored.
Why is my simple automator not working as an application?
Message was edited by: Pyrolistical

When you run that script as an application it comes to the front and is therefore the frontmost application: it doesn't have a window to be maximised.
You would need to specify the actual application to have its window maximised:
tell application "Safari"
activate
set bounds of window 1 to {0, 0, 1280, 800}
end tell
Trying to find out which was the frontmost application before you launched the AppleScript application is going to to be difficult.

Premiere to After Effects Composition workflow with Subclips?

I have a bunch of footage, each about 1 minute-long, that I'm cutting in Premier into a collection of 3-second highlight shots. What I want to do is take some of those 3 second clips and add a couple of effects in AE.
Problem #1:
When I select the trimmed shot in Premiere and select "Replace with After Effects Composition", all I get is a blank composition that is 1 minute long (not 3 seconds like how I trimmed it in the Premiere sequence editor).
Problem #2:
What I did to resolve the issue above is select the trimmed clip, then created a Subclip of it. Then when I selected "Replace with After Effects Composition" it then created a blank composition in AE that was 3 seconds long.
Ok fine, but that still doesn't resolve the blank AE composition. It will be super tedious to import each of the 1-minute footage files into AE and then re-find the 3 second section I already set in Premiere. Am I missing a step somewhere? How do I get After Effects to import that subclip automatically into the library? I tried to export the subclip from Premiere but couldn't find that option.
Is there a better workflow for what I'm trying to do?
Thanks!

I'm using DSLR footage and am not running into this issue. However, another workaround you could do is, copy the trimmed/subcliped clip and paste it into AE. To get a sequence in AE to conform to the durration of the copied clip, use otp+command+v. I use this in replace of dynamic link, and works quite well. Hope that helps.

CS4 Q: workflow, proxy, etc.

Hello -
I just left the question below with the CineForm support folks on their site too. I thought you all may have some great feedback about what codecs are available in Media Encoder (CS4 for now) that can repserve as much of my source footage quality as possible.
My main question for this forum is - what is the best codec I can use to cut my full HD footage (AVCHD - Cannon HFS21) down to qHD(960x540 range) or smaller and keep the best quality?
If I can do that as losslessly as possible in getting them down to quarter size then I can pump up my high res one from there in cineform and also export low res for editing (proxy/offline)
Thanks!
Rich
=========================
I have a new editing workstation on order (4 weeks.. ugg!) and so I'm looking for a workflow that lets me proxy files first. Even your full frame HD low res files are too big for my laptop to deal with pleasantly (no surprise, huh?) I really wish your tools would allow me to drop to qHD for both low and high res. Or even smaller. At this point I'm be happy working in that size range for the rest of my workflow.
So..... any tips would be appreciated. I'd be happy to drop to some intermediate format before coming into cineform but at this stage I am not sure which of the codecs in my CS4 (yes CS5 next month when the 64b OS box arrives) would be the safest in terms of preserving what quality there is in my AVCHD/MTS source files. I'm thinking AVI since that seems to be your preferred format. Are there others?
I'm thinking this for a flow...
AVCHD (HD) -> AVI (qHD) -> CFM AVI (qHD) Low (Proxy) & CFM AVI (qHD) High (Final)
Being a newbie I'm sure that I'm missing some key insight. Workflow advice appreciated!

Good to get that confirmation of my assuption. I spent the better part of a weekend trying out every combination of downsizing combined with proxy files and nothing could extract from h.264 ACVHD and retain any quality. CineForm does really well and recreating larger files with higher color data in it's own app window, but it sucks at downsizing via media encoder as a code selection. Of course I am in CS4 until me new hardware arrives in 4 weeks.
Thanks
Rich

Misspelled word in the Automated Email being sent by Workflow system

Hi Gurus,
First of all I'm absolutely clueless about workflow so please don't be hating. :X
I am trying to fix a bug in one of the email templates being sent to email addresses of our employees. The subject line have a misspelled word.
Where do I start?
Whats the tcode to go to these templates? And how do I search for the correct email to be corrected given that the information I have is the Subject line and the body of the email.
Points will be awarded.
Many thanks,
Regards,
Olekan Babatonde

There are several transactions you can use to check a workflow template. Depending on what you want to do you could use PFTC, SWDD or SWDD_CONFIG.
Finding the correct task from only the subject or content is much harder. The best thing to do is run SWI1 for the period the e-mails are generated. In the list you get is a column task which holds the tasknumber. Now you need to find the step which actually sends your e-mail and get the corresponding tasknumber. Using this in PFTC and the where used function you should be able to find the workflow (WS....). Then you can use SWDD_CONFIG to change the text.
But if the e-mail is SAP standard I would raise an OSS message and ask them to make the correction.
Regards,
Martin

CS4 / HDR workflow

I am beginning to use CS4's 'Merge to HDR' function - or rather, I would if I could get it to work.
Last week I merged a few bracketed images and did tone mapping but now when I load new images and merge them the screen will go blank before the 32-bit image is rendered.
Just installed 11.0.2 but I can't even complete the first step in the HDR process. Is this a known issue and if so, how do I overcome it? Or am I missing something very basic?

I'd try that, certainly. There is a point, however, at which things start to starve for RAM. I hope you'll be able to find a happy medium.
The long-term solution for this might be to get more RAM, or possibly ultimately move up to a 64 bit system.
I know that I've seen things work a lot better myself since I moved up to 16 GB from 8 GB RAM. There doesn't seem to be a limit on how much is "enough" for Photoshop.
-Noel

Automating Business Process.. Workflow or BPEL??

Dear All,
I hope you help me in this:
We need to automate all the business processes exists at the work. Currently we are using Oracle database and Oracle Forms and Reports to build all our applications.
The developers are excellent at SQL and PL/SQL. There is not any knowledge about Java or any other programming language.
Should Oracle Workflow be used to automate our business processes? Could it be used from Oracle Forms? or any other Oracle tools in general?
Or we should go for Oracle BPEL instead of Oracle Workflow?
I hope you help me in this
Emad

The idea is to automate everything. I am working in a university, so, there are many bunisess process such as:
1. Hiring New Employee: starting from the request of hiring the new employee up to the approving of hiring and signing the contract with this new employee.
2. Student Process: such as request to drop registered course, enrolling a closed course because of a special conditions... etc
3. Employees Requests: could be software/hardware maintenance request, could be electrical maitenance...etc
The nice thing that we (as IT department) has worked with the Quality unit at my work and we have documented every business process. So, now we know every business process from it will start and where it will end.
Now, we need to automate this. There is a debation that our developers should develop this system. I have said NO, there are Workflow Engines exist in the IT world and we have to study them and choose the best one for our needs.
We are using Oracle Database and Oracle Forms and Reports. We have excellent working experience in SQL and PLSQL.
Honestly, I have been thinking of Oracle Workflow, but Oracle BPEL beckons me.
Therefore, I am posting this thread for the sake of help from experts here who already has an excellent experience in this
Waiting for your participations..
Thanks

Grab Tool Issue with CS4 crimping Workflow, Solution?

Hi, I've been a consistent Photoshop user for the past 10 years and have upgraded to CS4 about 9 months ago.
I have an issue where I can't (spacebar-> grab tool) to move my image around without zooming in first. If the side of the image is not being clipped by the window your working in the grab tool will not work. I haven't found a way to turn this off.
I figured I would get used to this but I'm still running into it every day. Instead I've noticed myself just automatically pulling the window off the top bar and grabbing the edge to shrink it so I can actually move myself around.
I see no possible reason why they changed the functionality of the grab tool...unless they assume that every photoshop user has two monitors, one for pallettes and one for the working image? Even then why would they have collapsible pallettes?
It is THE most frustrating things I've ever experienced since I've used photoshop.
Is there a setting or option that I'm missing?

Thanks Mylenium, I hope your not right! But you probably are... I've asked everyone at work what they do about it and most don't use spacebar as a shortcut so it hasn't been much of an issue for them, though they do all admit they grab windows off the top bar right away and move pallettes/windows with their mouse when needed, but that's just a supream waste of time and effort when you can just quickly spacebar grab and throw. Plus I like keeping my pallettes in the same places so I know where to look when working.
My other friend whos employed elsewhere has the same problem as me and actually went back to CS3 because he couldn't use his spacebar shortcut the same way.

Can Automator run a workflow on many folders, one at a time?

Hello,
In a parent folder, I have a bunch of subfolders with image files (BMP, JPG or PNG).
I want each of these subfolders to become a PDF combining the original image files.
I also want the resulting PDFs to be named as the original subfolder.
Is there a way to do it with Automator, or do I have to dive into Applescript (I am totally new to both)?
In Automator, the following 3-step workflow does almost what I want:
#1 - Ask for Finder Items (I provide the parent folder)
#2 - Get folder contents
#3 - New PDF from images
However, I get only one huge PDF combining the contents of all subfolders (I need one PDF per subfolder) and I must give for step #3 a specific file name (I need the filename to be that of the containing folder).
Am I on the right path? I tried using the 'Loop' action and the 'Path' variable but I didn't progress.
More generally, can Automator run a workflow on a bunch of folders one folder at a time, or is that a job for Applescript?
Thank you very much for you help.
W.

Unfortunately, the text field in the *New PDF from Images* action doesn't support variables, and the *Rename Finder Items* action doesn't either (I wish Apple would get on the stick with updating their actions). There is this macosxhints article about hacking the workflow plist, but that doesn't always work.
I have a couple of actions that could be used - the Get Names of Finder Items action can be used to get the folder name (to put into a variable), and the Change Name of Finder Items action does accept variables to change the name.

Automating a print workflow

Hello, I have been trying to use automator to create a print workflow. About 20 times a day I send a new document to a combined fax/printer to fax to another associate at a remote location. I use the same printer, select send print from the tool bar, select send fax, select facsimile, add the number then press print. I do this over and over again. I tried to record the events as I did them through automator but I could not figure out how to implement them. Any ideas?

What are you using to print the items? If you are using a Run AppleScript action that you have put together, the items passed to the action are in the input parameter. You will need to loop through each item in this input variable (which is a list), for example:
repeat with MyFile in the input
-- do something with MyFile
end repeat

Simple (you would think) Automator workflow

Hi all,
I have been using Mac for the last 3 years. I have a very good knowledge of computers in general, Unix/Linux in particular but I have never used Automator. I would like to create a very simple application in Automator: when I click on the application icon I want to see a form in which I type the name of a song and as a result I want to see a window that contains all the music files that match that name.
I have no problem in creating this as a unix shell script and I know I can use spotlight (the problem with spotlight is that everytime I have to type the search string, click on Show All, then refine the search by setting Kind=Music etc.)
So I thought it would be a piece of cake to do it in Automator.
I'm using the action "Find Finder Items" with "Name Contains" AND "Kind is Audio". If I run this in automator I get the results I want (if I click on the Results tab). However, when I save it as Application and then double click on it, I get the input window in which I can specify the name of the songs I'm looking for (so far so good) but then nothing appears, the application seems to terminate correctly but I am never presented with the results.
I have tried to add a "Reveal Finder Items" after the first action but that's not what I want as it opens one window for each file that matches my search and each window shows all files, with the one I'm looking for highlighted.
What I need is something similar to spotlight, I want a window to open, showing all files that match. I know I can add more actions and for example copy all files that match into a specific folder then open the folder, but that's a dirty way of solving my problem and a bit of an overkill. Aliases would be slightly better, but still not exactly what I want.
This is driving me crazy, you would think it should be a very easy thing to accomplish with Automator...
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
TIA
/Pippo

thanks, but it still doesn't do what I want.
1) not all my music is in iTunes, so I can't use the Find in iTunes action
2) adding a Choose from List (as you suggested) after the Find Finder Items now shows me a list of all matches, so that is an improvement, thanks, but I stil can't do anything with that. What I need is a Finder window with the result of the search so that I can simply QuickView the song (or copy it or whatever)
3) using the Finder search is similar to using spotlight, it doesn't do what I want, I don't want to have to type each time that I'm only looking for songs.
I just want an Automator workflow that:
1) asks for a file name
2) searches my computer for audio files that match the name
3) shows the result in a window where I can then work with the files.
it really bugs me that I can't make Automator perform such a simple workflow, I'm sure I'm missing some obvious action.
please help
TIA
/pippo

Automator- Workflow for time worked based on project #

Hello All,
Trying to use automator to automatically do this workflow:
          I receive email that lists a project number as well as other info but proj. number is most important.
     I do the work etc..,
Then generate an email sending an invoice for my time worked and other details based on that project number to ONE emaiil address; thus my invoice for payment.
Goal:
          Thus keep track of which projects I have completed and sent an invoice for...
Can anyone get me started. I don't see how to get automator to pull that project number out of that email message to begin.
Thanks,
Al

Hi Al,
No expert here, but see if you can modify this Applescript to extract it...
http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=29554

"Run Workflow" action in Automator does not "Ask for Finder Items"

So I have a workflow called step_1 that does a bunch of stuff . . . in essence, it "Asks for a Finder Item" and then runs some Python shells and then outputs an Applescript format list {'item_1','item_2','item_3'}
I'm trying to use this workflow in another workflow so I selected "Run Workflow" in Automator and located my original workflow step_1 but when I run it, the process goes straight through the workflow and doesn't "Ask for Finder Items" so i'm sure it doesn't do anything else in the workflow either. It doesn't give me an error, it just pretty much bypasses everything within the workflow and it's pretty annoying.
Any idea on how to get my workflow to work using "Run Workflow" ?

Never tired Run Workflow before so as as a test I rn these two
and the Ask for Finder items in the called workflow ran OK.
Note this was run from Automator. One thing I did see was that the Ask for finder items window did not come to the front and I had to look under my open windows to see it.

Create Automator workflow/AppleScript to automatically move files within NAS

Running iMac / Macbook Air (OS 10.9.5), having the Macs connected wireless to the same network as a Seagate Central (NAS). On the Seagate Central and the iMac I have specified a couple of folders which are bidirectional synced via "Sync folders pro", e.g. pictures/movies folders. As a family, we have several iPhones (4S and 5S) with dedicated folders on the Seagate Central / iMac. Having the Seagate Media app on the iPhones, we are able to upload (and thereby free iPhone memory) pictures/movies directly onto the Seagate Central (pictures/movies which then are synced back onto the iMac). However, when uploading pictures/movies from the iPhone to the Seagate central (via Seagate Media app), it is not possible to define a target directory, and the pictures are therefore uploaded to a dedicated directory. I therefore search for some workflow/script to automatically (when new pictures/movies are uploaded, or at a daily basis);
- Search for pictures/movies within a specific NAS folder
- Move the pictures/movies to another specific NAS folder
- Delete all other files/folders within the NAS folder being searched
New to Automator / scripting, so I hope you bear with me even if the questions are dumb.
Is it possible to make the NAS recognize a workflow/script without starting the iMac and/or MBA?

Ok, so I made it a bit further, now having the following Automator Workflow (iCal)
1. Get requested clients (check for ignore input from this action)
- afp://192.168.1.86/Public
2. Connect to client
- I end up with a mounted disc (Public folder). Note that I end up at the same folder even if using afp://192.168.1.86/Public/iPhone/Photos in step 1.
3. Get specified Finder items (check for ignore input from this action - to avoid having the Public folder itself following the workflow)
- Choose the subfolder Public/iPhone/Photos
4. Get folder content
5. Filter Finder items
- Did not get any results by using arguments as "kind is picture" and/or "kind is movie"
- Ended up using arguments as "name contains jpg", "name contains mov" etc
6. Move Finder items
- Destination folder: Public/Pictures/iPhone
- I now successfully managed to transfer the pictures and movies from one NAS folder to another
*** I now want to continue the workflow to delete all other Folders/Files on Public/iPhone/Photos ***
7. Get specified Finder items (check for ignore input from this action - to have no existing input for the remaining workflow)
- Choose the subfolder Public/iPhone/Photos
8. Get folder content
- Results no showing a folder and a file
9. Move Finder items to trash
However, I´m encountering a couple of problems with this workflow;
Note1: If there are no pictures/movies to move (no output from #5 going into #6), the workflow will stop. Any suggestions on how to skip step #6 and go to #7 if there are no pictures/movies to move? Applescript within Automator? Setting up the workflow as iCal (regular basis), so would be nice if the workflow just completes without errors (i.e. still goes on with deleting other files on the folder, even if there are no pictures/movies to move).
Note2: Step #9 result in a error "Finder could not move the specified items to trash". Has this something to do with a folder and some other file being attempted deleted from a NAS folder? Any suggestions for how to cope with this problem?

Automator or Applescript using png files with alpha channel

I have hundred of png files with alpha channel.
I want to suppress alpha channel.
How can i do it using Automator or Applescript ?
Thank you very much.

You can use the free command line image processing tool ImageMagick in your Applescripts or Automator workflows, as well as from a Terminal shell.
You can download ImageMagick from http://www.imagemagick.org, but Cactuslab has simplified installation by putting together an installer package. It’s available at http://cactuslab.com/imagemagick/. Download the package and double-click on it. Follow the instructions to install. It will install ImageMagick into /opt/ImageMagick and add it to your $PATH by creating a file in /etc/paths.d/. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
The two ImageMagick commands we’re concerned with are “convert” and “mogrify”. Convert is more efficient for multiple and piped operations on the same image file, and mogrify is more efficient for batch processing. Generally speaking, convert will output a file separate from the input file. Unless a path is specified, mogrify will overwrite the input file with the output file. An important distinction.
You can perform various operations on the alpha channel using arguments after either the convert or mogrify command. Two of the available arguments are:
-alpha off - Disables the image's transparency channel. Does not delete or change the existing data, just turns off the use of that data.
-alpha remove - Composite the image over the background color.
Also of use are the -flatten and -background options:
-flatten - overlay all the image layers into a final image and may be used to underlay an opaque color to remove transparency from an image.
-background - sets the background color.
Start off using the convert command with a single image to see the effect and adjust to your liking. Once you’ve achieved the desired outcome, then use the mogrify command to batch process the chosen images.
Before getting into how to use Automator or Applescript in your workflow, use Terminal and the command line to see the effect on a single image. Copy one image to your ~/Desktop. In Terminal change the directory to ~/Desktop by typing the following command and pressing the Enter key:
cd ~/Desktop
Then choose the option you are looking for, -alpha remove for instance, type the following command and press the Enter key:
convert input-photo.png -alpha remove output-photo.png
You can check the alpha channel (transparency) and background in the Preview app, go View > Show Image Background from the menu bar.
Once you’re ready to batch proces, place all the photos you want to convert with the same command into one folder. Copy the folder to your ~/Desktop. Let’s assume you’ve labeled the folder “InPhotos”. It’s prudent to manipulate copies in case something goes amiss. In that event you can copy the folder with the originals again and start over. Create a new empty folder on your ~/Desktop and call it “OutPhotos”. Let’s also assume your home directory is called “Me”. The following command will process the photos from the InPhotos folder and put them in the OutPhotos folder:
mogrify -alpha remove -path /Users/me/Desktop/OutPhotos/ /Users/me/Desktop/InPhotos/*png
According to Apple Technical Note TN2065:
"when you use just a command name instead of a complete path, the shell uses a list of directories (known as your PATH) to try and find the complete path to the command. For security and portability reasons, do shell script ignores the configuration files that an interactive shell would read"
So, you need to use the full path to to ImageMagick commands, unlike in the shell where you can just use the command name.
To batch process using Automator, use the “Run Shell Script” action (note: retain the single space at the beginning of the last line):
/opt/ImageMagick/bin/mogrify \
-alpha remove \
-path /Users/Me/Desktop/OutPhotos/ \
/Users/Me/Desktop/InPhotos/*png
To batch process using Script Editor (Applescript), use the “do shell script” command:
do shell script "/opt/ImageMagick/bin/mogrify -alpha remove -path /Users/pd/Desktop/OutPhotos/ /Users/pd/Desktop/InPhotos/*png"
Further info on ImageMagick:
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#alpha
http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/masking/#remove
http://www.imagemagick.org/index.php
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-tools.php
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php
Examples:
The original PNG image:
-alpha off:
-alpha remove:
-background black -flatten:
-background blue -flatten:
-channel alpha -evaluate Divide 2:
-channel alpha -evaluate Divide 2 -background black -flatten:

Automating my AE(CS4) composition workflow?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for