Automating Assembly Of Rendered Layers

[user_deleted]

Rendering CG shots in Maya, and compositing in AE.

Doing the basic "Assembly" of the layers in AE is easy, but time-consuming because it's always the exact same settings, and there are so many shots.

So I'd like to automate this a little bit...

Ie. I'd like to set up a "typical" project, with basic settings dialed in, layers stacked in the right order, etc etc -- and then be able to simply replace the footage layers automatically.

Ie. automatically meaning, NOT by clicking "replace footage" on each and every footage item, and having to manually fish out the proper layer in the file browser. I have hundreds of shots, with 8-10 passes per shot, so that is too time consuming.

I am thinking AE scripting might be the answer, but I'm not familiar with JSX at all...

My folder structure looks something like this:

Any solution is good for me, though the best would be a JSX script that brings up a little window, with two input fields:
Old: S15A001
New: S15A002
and a "replace" button...

I thought of doing a search & replace in the .aep file itself... I do this with other apps sometimes that use ASCII file formats, but AE doesn't, so it doesn't work.
One more caveat: not all shots are the same length, or start at the same frame. Some TIF sequences run from 1-20, others from 150-190, etc etc.

Again, I'm totally ignorant of JSX, so I don't know how big a deal this would be to write. If someone can point me in the right direction, that would be great.
Any cheats / workarounds are also welcome. It doesn't have to be pretty.

[joojaa]

well adobe has finally caved so theres a xml format in the new ae (and they are making it sound like its new idea, typical. Whereas all other comp app have had this feature for 5 years now). Havent done much scripting in ae, but its not impossibly hard. For this kind of stuff ae is supprisingly clunky.

Anyway i have distinct feeling i saw somebody do this one day here lately. So chek the adobe script center it is probably there.

[user_deleted]

Adobe script center?

yes that's how unfamiliar I am with JSX...
googling it brings up junk...

[joojaa]

I has some time to spare so wrote this. you can implement any dialogs you need... i tested this very quickly but seems to work:

CODE
function replaceName(folder,replaceWhat,replaceWith) {
  for (i = 1; i <= folder.numItems; ++i) {
    current=folder.item(i);

    if(current.typeName=="Footage"){
      var str = current.file.path+"/"+current.file.name;
      str= str.replace(replaceWhat,replaceWith);
      var my_file = new File(str);
      current.replace(my_file);
    }
    else if (current.typeName=="Folder"){
      replaceName(current,replaceWhat,replaceWith);
    }
  }
}

replaceName(app.project,"substring to replace","substring to replace with");

Again no gui but thats you should be able to make. Tough you may want to call them from commandline. (the render commandline is ascript so you can add this there if its convenient for you)

QUOTE
yes that's how unfamiliar I am with JSX... smile.gif

Well javascipt is something you find with allmost half of all webpages. But yes adobe has some extensions on it read:

http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects...pting\_guide.pdf