After Effects scripting library

From Mographwiki.net

AE scripting for MEL maya scripters

Yes, its a specific category, but thats me... hopefully this'll be of use to anyone who can script in another language.

• To open a simple popup box: alert("hello world");
• To just print to the console (handy for debugging without halting flow): $.writeln("hello world");
• To print to the info window (like using the info line in maya): write("boo");
• To print to the info window with a new-line: writeLn("boo");
• The current project array of objects: app.project.items
• List all the items in the current project:

  var meItems = app.project.items;
  var totalItems = meItems.length;
  
  for (var i=1; i<meItems.length; i++) {
     $.writeln("item:[" +i+ "] is " + app.project.item(i).name);
  }

this returns

  item:[1] is 0_fina
  item:[2] is 0_fin.tif
  item:[3] is 010.jpg
  item:[4] is ad
  item:[5] is ad.iff
  item:[6] is Comp 1
  item:[7] is Solids
  item:[8] is Black Solid 1

• Get the name of layer 8 in a comp (note the array index is the same as the layer number): app.project.item(6).layer(8).name

Auto slate generator

Early days, but this is working well so far. Our image sequences out of 3d are named in the format sequence_camera_shot_take_artist.####.jpg, this script takes that info and updates an existing slate template. Will expand to also read in lens info from a text file generated inside xsi/maya.

  seqLookup = new Array;
  
  seqLookup[10] = "010 - boy meets girl";
  seqLookup[20] = "020 - boy loses girl";
  seqLookup[30] = "030 - boy wins girl back";
  // keep adding to define more sequences
     
  function findItem(searchString) {
     var result;
     var curItem;
     
     searchString = searchString.toLowerCase();
     for (i = 1; i <= app.project.numItems; ++i) { 
        curItem = app.project.item(i);
        if (curItem.name.toLowerCase().indexOf(searchString) != -1) { 
           result = curItem;
           break;
        }
     }
     return result;
  }
  
  // find the sequence name, in this case by looking for the first
  // item in the 'sequence' folder of the project. this will need 
  // to change if run from a command line.
  var seqFolder = findItem("sequence");
  var seq = seqFolder.item(1).name.split(".")[0]
  
  //now split into parts; it will be in the form seq_cam_shot_take_artist
  var shotInfo = seq.split("_")
  
  // find the slate comp, update the text fields
  var slateComp = findItem("slate");
  
  date = new Date();
  date = date.getDay()+" - "+date.getMonth()+" - "+date.getFullYear();
  
  slateComp.layer("scene").property("Source Text").setValue(seq);
  slateComp.layer("cam").property("Source Text").setValue(shotInfo[1]);
  slateComp.layer("seq").property("Source Text").setValue(seqLookup[parseInt(shotInfo[0],10)]);
  slateComp.layer("date").property("Source Text").setValue(date);