This bundle includes the following plugins:

BadTV ($29):

BadTV creates realistic analog TV distortion with control over vertical,horizontal syncs and scanline distortion.  Simulates VCR, DV Tape and Poor Reception Television effects. To know more about BadTV check out the product page.

DataGlitch ($49):

Data Glitch creates realistic digital image glitch effects on the fly. You can control the glitch pattern, type of glitch and create awesome audio reactive image glitch effects. Data Glitch also helps you to create controllable compression artifacts with ease.  For more info check out the product page.

Separate RGB ($19):

Separate RGB separates the individual R,G,B channels. Not only you can separate them but you can also offset, fade and rotate individual channels in a single layer. You can create many color distortion effects including Chromatic Aberration. For more info check out the product page for SeparateRGB.

We are happy to introduce a limited time special offer – The Complete TV Distortion Bundle

Get all the three plugins for only $59

• Bad TV $29
• Data Glitch $49
• Separate RGB $19

Total  $97 Limited Offer $59

Automated Versioning of your Comps

The compsFromSpreadsheet script allows you to quickly generate copies of your master comp with data from your spreadsheet used to update text or replace layers.

Getting Started

Before you can use the script you need to setup one or more template compositions to receive data from your spreadsheet. There are three different ways your template comp can be updated from the spreadsheet

• Text layers that begin with ^(shift 6) will be able to receive data from the spreadsheet as the text for that layer.
• If you have a text layer named ^date it will receive todays date (great if you’re generating slates)
• If you have a non-text layer in your comp that begins with #, it will be replaced by the project item named in your spreadsheet

If you are running the script as a dockable panel, there will be two buttons to automatically create either a text or layer object in the currently selected comp.

Setting up your Spreadsheet

The first line of your spreadsheet must contain the names for each column.
When you run the script it will take each of these column names and and allow you to connect that column with elements in your template comp.

After you do this the script will go through the spreadsheet line by line, each line of the spreadsheet will become a new copy of one of your template comps, with data from that line of the spreadsheet updating the layers in the template comp copy that were targeted to receive it.  If a cell in the spreadsheet has <br> when the script is run it will replace the <br> with a carriage return.

If you have set up more than one composition to receive data, you will need to have a column in your spreadsheet that holds the name of the comp to be used as the base. In the above sample spreadsheet the column ‘Core Spot’ will be used, so when the script is run, for the first line of data it will create a copy of the comp named “spot 1″ to be used for that line.

Before After effects can read your spreadsheet, it needs to be converted into a tab-delimited text file (most spreadsheet programs do this easily). This is a universal text format that will allow After effects to read in your data and organize it by rows and columns.

When you run the script be sure to point it to this newly created text file and not your spreadsheet as After Effects cannot read any spreadsheet format (maybe I should call the script compsFromTabDelimitedTextFile).

A word about Commas

If you have commas in your data, they will probably get stripped. Why? I believe it is a bug in Excel. There are two major types of delimited text documents, tab-delimited (which we are using) and comma delimited text. If using a comma-delimited format, commas are used to separate columns, if there happens to be a comma in your data, the program will need to strip them out prior to saving as they will be falsely interpreted as the end of that column.

If saving as tab-delimited, tabs would likewise need to be stripped out from your data. Commas are fine and should not be removed, as they are NOT a separator. Sadly, Excel still strips out commas, even when you are saving as a Tab-Delimited text file.

Running the Script

compsFromSpreadsheet needs to know which comps in your project have been setup for use with the script.

When you run the script a window will pop up with all the comps in the project in the left column . Double click on the comp names that are to be used to move them to the right “selected comps” column. Click continue when you have added all the comps to be used to the “selected comps” column.

If you only have one comp this window is bypassed.

If you put all your comps in a folder called TEMPLATES the script will bypass this window and assume that the comps in that folder are to be used

Synching Column Data to your Comp

When the script reads the first line of your spreadsheet, it needs you to tell it where the data from each column should go in your comp. The Field Init window opens. Each column name from the first line of the spreadsheet appears with a dropdown box underneath.

The dropdown box links the data from that column in the spreadsheet to elements in your template comps. The dropdown box contains the names of all the layers that were set up earlier to receive data (remember, the text layers that started with ^ will receive the data from this column, and a layer with a # will be replaced with the project item named in this column.)

If a column name is the same as an element name in one of your comps, that will be automatically selected in the dropdown i.e. If you have a column in your spreadsheet “phone” and a text layer in one of your template comps named “^phone”, that item will be automatically selected in the dropdown box. If however, your text layer is “^phone number” it will not be selected in the dropdown box.

If you have more than one comp to be used you will need to have a column in your spreadsheet with the name of the comp to be used for that line. Select ‘COMP’ from the dropdown box of the column that holds comp names, if you only have comp to be used ‘COMP’ will not appear in the dropdown as the script will already know which comp to use.

Naming Comps

The next step you need to tell the script how to name the newly created sequence, and where you want the rendered sequences to go. The default naming convention is line number, so the name of the very first Comp is “2″ ( because line 1 holds the column names). and the next comp created it called “3″ and so on until it reaches the last line of the spreadsheet.

Alternately you can have the script keep the name of the original template comp and append a number to the end. so the first time the script creates a comp from “spotA” it is named “spotA_1″, next line that uses that comp will name the new comp “spotA_2″

Lastly, you can choose to get the name from one of your spreadsheet columns. So if you choose “FROM SPREADSHEET | name” from the dropdown, the comp will get its name from the ‘name’ column of the spreadsheet.

Setting Render Location

Every comp created by the script will be placed in the render que using the default settings for your render que. It will default to saving the renders in the same directory as your project. If you click the “Render Output Location” button you can select where you want the script to render your comps to.

Conclusion

The script will run through your data line by line. For each line it will create a new comp, put it in a folder called “compsFromSpreadsheet”, update any target layers in that comp with data from the current line, finally, the comp will be placed in the render que using render que defaults and set to render in the same directory as the project (unless you set a different render location in the field init window.

Hit the render button and all your newly created comps will render (go out for a pint while it renders!)

Dockable Panels

The script can either be run as a dockable panel or as a traditional script.

If run as a dockable panel, there will be buttons in the panel to create target text or layer objects to be used with the script. Clicking “Run compsFromSpreadsheet” will bring up the comp select window

If the script is run the traditional way (by accessing it through file – scripts), you will be taken to the comp select window immediately, bypassing the window shown here.

Licensing

compsFromSpreadsheet may be downloaded and used free of charge for non commercial use. If it is to be used commercially, the license is $20

Version History

• v2.2 – Aug 2010
  • If a cell in the spreadsheet has <br>
    when the script is run it will replace the <br>

    with a carriage return.

• v2.12 – June 2010
  • Now arranges the field init into multiple rows if you have more that 10 fields (and that number is changeble through a “layout” button)
• v2.11 – May 2010
  • Small bug fix to new separate folder feature, now correctly places extension after frame number.
• v2.1 – May 2010
  • You can now choose to have renders go to separate folders, so if you are rendering a tiff sequence for example, each comp will be rendered to an individual folder.
• v2.01 – May 2010
  • Added file extension to output file name in render queue.
• v2.0 – May 2010
  • Added ability to insert footage items.
  • Added dockable UI.
  • Blessed for CS5.
• v1.22
  • Fixed a small bug that prevented the script from running on some non-english systems.
• v1.21
  • Fixed a bug in the program that caused the script not to run in certain situations. Previously, the script would try to create a folder called “Renders” in the same directory as your project to put your rendered files. The script no longer does this. Now there is a button in the field init window which allows you to designate a folder for renders. If you do not choose one, renders will go wherever your render que is set to put them.
• v1.2
  • The comp select window now uses scrolling lists to accommodate projects with a lot of comps. The way it works now is there is a list of all comps in the project on the left side of the window. Any comp you want to use, double click on it and it will go the the list on the right. The list on the right is all the comps to be used by the program.
  • If you create a folder called ‘TEMPLATES’ the comp select window will be bypassed and the program will assume that all the comps in this folder are to be used.
• v1.1
  • Added the ability to choose the naming convention of new comps. Previously the comp was always named the line number of the database, now you can choose if you want line number, original comp name (with an incrementing number), or sync it up with a column in your spreadsheet.
  • Fixed a bug in the new version check.The function is only supposed to run once every 10 days, but the function checked every time the script was run. This has been corrected.
• v1.0 Initial Release

Version History:

• 1.8 Fixed output directory bug, CS5 compatible 08/2010
• 1.71 Fixed layer name bug 06/2010
• 1.7 Added marker comment and comp name in file name option 11/2009
• 1.6 Fixed select output folder if cancelled bug, removed RQ queued item check, checked for layer-less comp 11/2009
• 1.5 Added new smarter interface options 10/2009
• 1.3 fixed mac output filename bug 08/2009
• 1.2 added numbering option 07/2009
• 1.1 changed to work within workarea only 01/2009
• 1.01 bug fixes 09/2008
• 1.0 Initial Release 09/2008

Version History

• 1.0 – Initial release on aescripts.com 08/2010

If you apply particular on a layer, you will see that the particles are 3D aware if you have a camera. But if you have layers in your 3D space, the particles won’t intersect with them. Particles are always “in front of” the 3D layers that are below the particules layer in the layer stack.

Particular has a visibility option, where you can set a range where your particules are visible or not, let’s say from 0px to 200px in Z space from the camera.

What the script does is sort your layers in your comp so that the 3D layers stack on the composition regarding to their Z position, and then duplicates your particle layer between every 3D layers. All thoses instances have their visibility option expressioned to fill the Z range between the front and behind 3D object. Like that your particles are intersecting properly with your layers.

It’s not a true intersection, it rather an automation of a workaround, but it works great. Plus there are some options if you want to update your particle layer so that every instance get updated too.

Supports Particular from v1.5 and above (including Particular 64bit update for CS5), and works fine with multiple Particular effects on the same layer.

Version History

• v1.1 Fixed a bug in CS5 for Particular 2.1 which have a slight modification on one parameter. CS3 & CS4 version untouched. (Aug 2010)
• v1.0 Initial release for CS3 & CS4 (Aug 2009)

Note: The palette cannot detect any errors in the scripts that you run from it. It’s just a quick way of launching scripts without restarting AE or using ExtendScript Toolkit (i.e., switching away from AE).

If a PNG file of a similar name and same folder as the script file (but with a .png file name extension) exists, it will appear next to the script name in the list.

Enhancements requested by Russ Maehl.

Nathan Clark has created some awesome icons you can use with rd: Script Launcher that he has graciously shared with the community: Download Icons

Version History

• v2.5 Fixed listbox text color in AE CS5. Filtered out script itself from appearing in the list (Aug 2010)
• v2.4 Initial release on aescripts.com (Aug 2009)

Version History

• v2.6 (Aug 2010)
  • When there is an expression, the script locks the property and also stores the expression so that when unlocking the property goes back to its original state.
  • CS5 compatibility.
• v2.5 Initial release on aescripts.com (Aug 2009)

Version History

• v3.0 Now handles tangents properly, CS5 compatibility (Aug 2010)
• v2.5 Initial release on aescripts.com (Aug 2009)

Version History

• v2.1 Added Slider Range button to modify the range of the sliders (Aug 2010)
• v2.0 Initial release on aescripts.com (Jun 2009)

Version History

• v2.1 Code cleanup and CS5 compatibility (Aug 2010)
• v2.0 Initial release on aescripts.com (Aug 2009)

Some fun trivia

Researchers just concluded that every position of Rubik’s Cube™ can be solved in twenty moves or less. http://www.cube20.org/

Version History

• v2.0 (Aug 2010)
  • New interface
  • User-defined faces (comps or footage files); the script takes care of the resizing, splitting,… of each face
  • CS5 compatibility
• v1.2 Initial release on aescripts.com (Sep 2009)

Version History

• v2.6 Added (random) uniform scaling, opacity bug fixed, CS5 compatibility (Aug 2010)
• v2.5 Initial release on aescripts.com (Aug 2009)

Version History

• v2.6 Code cleanup and CS5 compatibility (Aug 2010)
• v2.5 Initial release on aescripts.com (Aug 2009)

Version History

• v1.1 Remaining vertices keep their original tangents (they were ignored in the previous version), CS5 compatibility (Aug 2010)
• v1.0 Initial release (Jun 2009)

Note: The download includes two archives. Version 2.5 is compatible with CS3 and version 3.1 which is compatible with CS4 and above.

Version History:

• v3.2 – Resources folder has been put in parentheses, CS5 compatibility 08/2010
• v3.1 – 02/2010
  • support any type of layers, including text layers, layers with masks and shape layers (multiple masks or shapes on the same layer is also supported)
  • support any type of transformations (rotation, scale, parenting, 2d/3d, etc)
• v3.0 – 01/2010
  • user interface redesigned
  • handles any prior transformation to layers (scale, rotation, 2d/3d,
    etc), and every pixel aspect ratio
  • supports every alignment in case of text layers
  • CS4 only, Mac & PC
• v2.5 Initial release on aescripts.com (CS3 compatible) – 08/2009