Batch toggle layers and export

[sir.joseph.banksy]

I'm quite new to AfterEffects so apologies if this is simple, I basically want to apply the same effect to 100 images and then export it (so I end up with 100 video files with that effect).

I've got each image as a layer in a precomposition, so if I only show one of the layers, it shows exactly how I want to output it in the final composition. But doing this 100 times seems extremely labour intsensive/repetitive. Is there a way to make it automatically go through all of them, toggle on "layer 1" in the pre-comp, export the main comp to "layer 1.mp4", then toggle onto "layer 2" and export to "layer 2.mp4"... etc?

[Mylenium]

Not really a workflow one would employ. One would rather simply duplicate the parent comp 100 times and add a single image to each of the duplicates and add them to the render queue. For such tasks there are plenty of scripts on AEScripts.com, though you may not necessarily find one that covers your exact scenario and you may need to combine multiple scripts or individual functions.

Mylenium

[Arie Stavchansky]

Hi There!   I think Templater for Adobe After Effects can help you accomplish what you are looking to do — you would need either the Pro or Bot edition of the extension. 

In general, you setup a Google Sheet where each column header matches the name of the layer you want to change.  Each row in the sheet is a new output, so every cell under a column header is what the layer will "receive" when Templater reads the Sheet data and injects it into the layer.  Templater can batch render a single composition that is re-versioned and then rendered for each row in a sheet.

For hiding and showing layers, you can use Templater's flags which are terms wrapped in double braces.  For example, you can specify {{off}} as one of the values for a cell and the corresponding layer will "turn off" in the composition when Templater processes that value.

You can learn more about the extension here:  https;//dataclay.com/templater

You can learn more about how to control layer visibility through spread sheet data by watching this segment of this video.

You can see documentation about Templater here:  https://support.dataclay.com/templater

Hopefully this can help with your workflow tasks!