Add an option to select specific comps when importing AE projects

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
December 18, 2024
5 replies
722 views

Hey!

The idea here is when importing an After Effects project into your current one, you would have the option to either bring in the entire project, as is the current behaviour, OR to select the specific comp(s) you wanted to import and only they would be brought in, along with the assets used in those comps.

This could behave in a similar manner to Premiere importing another project - similar to the 'Import Project' modal. The equivalent option from that list to the proposed idea would be 'Import selected sequences'.

The reason this would be useful is to import assets from a different AE project at the moment can be time consuming. There are existing options - either import the entire reference project (which can either result in a bloated main project, or time spent pruning the unwanted parts, with the associated risk of accidentally deleting something that's used), or to reduce the source project and/or some variant of save comp as project.

Being able to select the comps to import would be a big workflow help, especially when working across multiple projects for the same client/brand. It would cut out a lot of steps, and increase confidence that you have a clean project and the assets you need are correctly imported.

I guess that expression-referenced objects might not come in properly, as per the existing warnings in Reduce project, so an info note would probably be needed as well.

Cheers!

Mike ChooAuthor

Inspiring

While I would love for this to be a native feature, there is a new extension on AEScripts called Pluck that hits this functionality:

https://aescripts.com/pluck/

Been using it for a few days and it is GREAT. The dev is super-responsive as well 👍🏾

I’ve got no hesitation in recommending it right now if this is part of your workflow needs, it’s already saved me more time than it costs to buy.

Stargazer on ARM

Known Participant

Thanks for the tip!

It looks good reading the description, I give you that much 😊. But it's 29 USD so I’m thinking of giving the free trial a spin (EDIT: Didn’t see the free trial knob the first time).

I bought some scripts over the years and paid something like 20-30 USD for a script handling multiple key frames some 5 years ago and it worked beautifully until Adobe implemented a superior multiple key frame handling feature in one of their AE updates.

I have to pay for these scripts out of my own pocket since the regulations on personal expenses refunding is quite rigorous where I do most of my work, and even though I had good use of them at the time the scripts became obsolete when Adobe introduced their own clever and - again - far more superior solution to the problem.

So by all due respect I'm thinking of sitting this one out. If it really is a good idea and - obviously - a user based request for such a feature, chances are our wish will come true one of these days 😊

Best regards and sincerely yours,
Stargazer

Mike ChooAuthor

Inspiring

Fair play, I’ve definitely done the same thing and bought plugins that have been replaced with native features (had a couple of particularly expensive ones in Cinema 😭). I’m freelance, so these plugin costs all come straight from me as well but TBH I’d be happy to pay for this one out of my own pocket haha.

I would properly love for a native solution to this - that said, Pluck has saved me much more time than it cost already (I’m not on commission BTW 😂). It’s currently on my ‘couldn’t live without’ list, next to Keystone 3 (the constant speed between 2 keys button is worth the price alone IMO).

So yeah, I am 100% with you that I’d love to see this as a native feature, but until then I’m happy that the plugin route has made my day more efficient. Current work requires a lot of extracting assets from older projects and this has sped things up so much.

I completely understand your position on this and I join you in hoping it’ll get picked up for development soon.

Cheers and have a good one!
Mike

Stargazer on ARM

Known Participant

Yes, a very VERY good idea!

Unless it is implemented already, this is an old thread an I haven’t really checked the update logs lately.

The only workaround as far as I know is to save the project as a new AE “transfer” project and delete everything you don’t want to import. Importing a whole project can get quite messy if you have a lot of comps and only the one or the few that you want to recycle.

Sincerely yours,

Stargazer