Scripting: Beginner's Guide To Creating After Effects Scripts

Contents

• Introduction


• Why Scripts?


• Extendscript Toolkit


• Conclusion

Introduction

After spending years with After Effects expressions, it seems natural to branch out into writing custom scripts. However, I found it's not that easy. It can be quite daunting for beginners - with information in the

Once this toggle is on, Extendscript Toolkit will be available to download on your app page.

Opening up Extendscript Toolkit, you'll see this:

This will allow you to connect Extendscript Toolkit directly to whichever Adobe program you are writing scripts for. I have selected my most up to date version of After Effects. Now, whenever I press the play button on the top toolbar, it will run the script directly in After Effects without me having to save out the file - which is great for testing things out.

With After Effects open, try adding the following code to Extendscript Toolkit and running it:

var mainWindow = new Window("palette", "My First Window", undefined);

var mainGroup = mainWindow.add("group", undefined);

var mainText = mainGroup.add("statictext", undefined, "Hello World!");





mainWindow.show();

mainWindow.center();

If you have selected the correct version of After Effects, you should see your first window pop up!

We'll go into detail about creating windows and the options available in another article.

Now that you have Extendscript Toolkit installed, you're ready to start making scripts!

Conclusion

Scripts are powerful tools which let us create After Effects templates and improve our own workflows by adding custom, unique tools.

In upcoming articles I will go over:

• Navigating After Effects and selecting projects and compositions


• Creating windows and panels


• Adding new layers and compositions


• Creating, editing, and animating text layers


• Creating, editing, and animating shape layers


• And more!

Let me know in the comments if there is a specific topic you would like to see me cover.