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Inspiring
August 23, 2023
Question

Coding or Scripting tool to alter Adobe files outside the Apps.

  • August 23, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 2215 views

A guy I know, found a coding or scripting tool to alter Adobe files outside the Apps.
So you don't need to start up any Adobe App, but you can alter parameters found inside the Adobe file.
Think like the Source Text within an After Effects project.
Once my acquaintance told me the name of this coding / scripting system but I forgot and he refuses to tell me about it again.
It's made by Adobe. If I'm correct, it's Java-like. 
What happens is that you see a little black console box. Then your script / code changes whatever you like within the project.
In all the years I have been working with Adobe, I have never been able to find anything about this system and also now, I have not been able to find it back again. It's that hard to find. 
It's not for writing things within the apps. So no expressions and such. It's a little something like a jsx. Quite crude but it uses instructions from the specific Adobe site which allows for extremely powerfull, deep and quick changes within Adobe files. 
I hope one of you know about this.

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3 replies

Known Participant
August 31, 2023

It seems it might be ExtendScript. Not sure about this but finding info to do what I want, is not that easy. 

Justin Taylor-Hyper Brew
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 4, 2023

ExtendScript is the scripting language for Adobe apps. You still need the app to be running in order to use it. Some apps, (After Effects being one of them) can be run headlessly, and you can do some editorial operations.

 

Aside from that each app is different. Some like AE and Premiere can be exported to an XML structure, but that will require a lot of reverse engineering and trial and error to get stuff to work.

 

Smoothest path forward for automating Adobe projects is using ExtendScript through ScriptUI or a CEP panel for more complex workflows and UIs. Some more info on the differences between Scripts, Extensions, and Plugins here:

https://hyperbrew.co/blog/scripts-extensions-plugins/

Known Participant
September 8, 2023

Do you think I could open an AE project, alter it, via AE Render or some other "silent" method?

Mathias Moehl
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 23, 2023

Maybe you talk about running After Effects using the command line?
https://ae-scripting.docsforadobe.dev/introduction/overview.html#running-scripts-from-the-command-line-a-batch-file-or-an-applescript-script

 

You can also run the scripts headless, i.e. no user interface of Ae is shown. See

https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-discussions/run-a-script-from-make-headless/m-p/1680955

But in any case, an instance of Ae will run in the background.

 

Mathias Möhl - Developer of tools like BeatEdit and Automation Blocks for Premiere Pro and After Effects
Known Participant
August 24, 2023

Thanks but that's not what I need.
We already built an automated rendering system based on txt files that get updated.
This is however, running into limitations when After Effects gets updated. You then have to confirm for every AEP file you use, that something has changed. This is an unwanted side effect when you link text to an AEP.
This doesn't happen when you alter the AEP file internally. 
I can however, only find layer names and change those. The Source Text requires hex decoding.
What I need is an option to run something that changes some parameters inside the aep file in a robust way and then having it rendered, prefereably by aerender.

Community Expert
August 23, 2023

never heared of it.

however, if you save an AE project as XML (it's in the "save as" menu), then the project file becomes "text editor friendly". so such a tool is very much possible to make.

oh, and that guy you know s*cks.

Known Participant
August 23, 2023

The XML trick is known indeed. But it takes hex decoding to find the Source Text. A bit of a pity as the aforementioned method is way more elegant.