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GM Rod
GM Rod
Known Participant
January 21, 2022
Answered

How to batch export selectively...

  • January 21, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 963 views

Hey guys!

I've just bought a stream deck and of course, I want to make my own icons for it.

After making one, I had a thought.

It's an animated GIF.

The idea is to have a little shine go past the logo on the button every few seconds, it works perfectly.

So the question now is, how do I avoid doing it again from scratch for every single button?

The way I've done it is, there's two layers. One contains the button graphic, and the other is just the shiny animation and of course this one is the top layer in screen mode, etc.

What I want to do now is just import every other icon into AE, and export all of them in one fell swoop.

So it'd be one resulting animated GIF per layer, EXCEPT I need the first layer to always be in it too.

So each export would be like:

LAYER 1 - Shine
LAYER 2 - Icon

Next

LAYER 1 - Shine
LAYER 3 - Icon

So on and so forth.
Any ideas?

 

P.S.: I've included the one I made for reference. It also has Twitch stuff on it but that's easy, I can just copy the effects from this one and paste it to every other layer at once.

 

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Mylenium

This is even simpler than Mr. Hamrick actually explained. If you reverse the logic, you simply create the light sweep once as a pre-comp and slap it on top of the other comps which you could sort of auto-create by just dragging the prepped images onto the comp creation icon. If they are named correctly, you don't even need to change the auto-generated comp name. With continuous rasterization/ collapsed transformations the effects and blending modes would pass through, though that may require some restructuring in the sweep comp itself.

 

Mylenium

2 replies

Mylenium
MyleniumCorrect answer
Legend
January 22, 2022

This is even simpler than Mr. Hamrick actually explained. If you reverse the logic, you simply create the light sweep once as a pre-comp and slap it on top of the other comps which you could sort of auto-create by just dragging the prepped images onto the comp creation icon. If they are named correctly, you don't even need to change the auto-generated comp name. With continuous rasterization/ collapsed transformations the effects and blending modes would pass through, though that may require some restructuring in the sweep comp itself.

 

Mylenium

    GM Rod
    GM RodAuthor
    Known Participant
    January 22, 2022

    Right, awesome ideas guys!

    But I'm not quite there yet, I don't think.

    So far, I've done:

    - Precomp light sweep

    - Drag every image in there onto the new comp button, this successfully created a comp for every image already named correctly, amazing!

     

    But, what now? I still have one comp on top that's the light sweep and all the other ones below. If I switch the visibility on/off for each one, it looks correct. But if I export like this, they will all come out separate, as in, I'll have one light sweep comp and every other comp will be by itself with no light sweep, yes?

     

    GM Rod
    GM RodAuthor
    Known Participant
    January 22, 2022

    I just feel like odds are, there is a script or plugin out there that does this. I'm sure someone else has had this need before.

    It'd just need to export multiple files, one per layer, while offering the option to "lock" one or more that are on top and "blend" it with every single one below...

     

    Kyle Hamrick
    Community Expert
    Kyle HamrickCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 21, 2022

    You could probably craft a way to do this via scripting, but it would probably be a lot more work than just stepping through it.

    If it were me, I'd:

    • Make one comp, test & confirm it's what I want.
    • Duplicate & rename until I've covered all the needed icons.
    • Import all the other icons (prepped & sized consistently before import)
    • Step through and replace the icons in the individual comps. (Alt-drag or use CTRL+ALT+/ hotkey) 
    • Add all to Render Queue.
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