Archive for April, 2007

Exporting Camera Data from After Effects to Cinema 4D

April 22, 2007 at 7:31 pm · Filed under After Effects, Scripting

Paul Tuersley has written a script for exporting camera data from After Effects to Cinema 4D. Paul has also written an extensive brain dump on his process of writing the script and it’s a great example of how research and development of scripts and tools can take on a life of its own. I’ve talked to a couple of people lately who feel that scripting is just beyond their reach, but I hope by reading posts like Paul’s, folks realize that a bit of tenacity and letting a problem gestate and get under your skin until you “just have to solve this” goes a long way to developing really useful tools.

Paul was also kind enough to send me his upgrades and update to my Auto Rig Script for After Effects. I’ve posted his version of the script and I hope to make his changes permanent once I can get some field testing of it working out in all situations. So, I’d appreciate it if you’d download it and give me feedback if you have any issues.

Great work Paul!

UPDATE 04.24.2007

Paul posted a project (riggedCam_noXYZ.zip) set up to animate the null instead of the camera that will allow the use of motion paths addressed in the comments below. It also sounds like Paul has a lot of ideas about new features and is looking for feedback at the thread he’s set for the script at aenhancers.

UPDATE 06.09.2007
Paul has updated his script to version 1.1

Paul writes…
I’ve posted a new version of that AEtoC4D script that exports normal
AE cameras, and more.

AE to C4D

Comments (9)

Final Cut Pro to After Effects Scripting without the hassle

April 15, 2007 at 10:35 pm · Filed under After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Scripting

With the release of Automatic Duck as a free product there really isn’t a great reason to use this script except as an example of XML parsing and Comp creation from parsed properties. For general FCP to AE workflows I’d recommend downloading Automatic Duck Pro Import AE 5.0. Depending on what happens with FCPX and After Effects I may write new tools for import from FCPX.

One of the most popular pieces of content here is Moving Between Final Cut Pro and After Effects: The Scripting Option. I think the idea of using scripting to move between Final Cut Pro and After Effects resonated with people working in a production environment.

Unfortunately, the post was more of a tech demo of the kinds of things that were possible with After Effects scripting and less of a practical demonstration for non-technical users. I still urge non-technical folks to dip their toes into the scripting waters, it can be really rewarding, but the challenges presented in “rolling your own” in this situation may be a bit much. So, I decided to write a small application to provide a way for readers who don’t want to deal with the scripting hassle to use some of the techniques I described in the article.

FCPToAE (working title) is an application for OSX 10.4 and above designed to create a .jsx file from a Final Cut XML file for import into After Effects without the hassle of scripting the different parts yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

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