quick way to overlay text to display the file names?

[djmattyz]

someone has send me a load of photos of wedding coupled to edit into a montage

they have carefully named each of the photos with the name of bride and groom

they want me to overlay some text onto the video, as each photo appears, the name of the couple will appear

its quite a lot of photos, about 100.

im just wondering , is there any quick way to get AE to do this without  having to do this manually?

[Rick Gerard]

Add a text layer above the photo then reveal the source text property and Alt/Option click on the stopwatch to add this expression:

thisComp.layer(index + 1).name

That will give you the name of the layer below the text layer. If you select the Source Text property you can save this as an animation preset to make it easier to use. I have it in my collection of over 200 custom presets that I use all the time.

I should mention that if there is a file extension on the layer name you'll have to delete it. I've been going to write some code to strip file names automatically but I have not gotten around to it because I rename almost all of my layers in a comp anyway.

[djmattyz]

Rick, you are the MAN   thanks!!

one thing i noticed is that it appears as one long line ot text, going off the screen sometimes.

is there a way to force the text to 'wrap' inside the confines of a certain space?

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

Select the type tool and then click and drag in the Comp Panel to create a fixed size text box. Your text will now wrap. Just duplicate the layer and drag it above the next image for each image that needs a name so all of them look the same and are in the same prosition.

[djmattyz]

thankyou !  my day has been saved.

[djmattyz]

ok just one more thing....

i do need some effects between the photos and the text, to make the text pop out more. but im limited since i cannot put something between the text files and the photos.

is there a way to , say,  create a layer in a master comp, and tell it to basically do what another layer in one of the lower comps is doing.

in this case, to show the same text that these text files are showing?

that way i can keep the photos and the original text files in a comp of their own, possibly mute the original text files, and then but  all my effects and stuff in a master comp where i can seperate the text and the photos.

kinda complicated question, but its something i have often wondered actually.

[djmattyz]

ok i have come up with a workaround,   by duplicating the original text & photo comp.

muting the photos on the new comp, and muting the text on the old comp.  this gives me the desired effect. 

[Rick Gerard]

I would do this all with animation presets. You can animate a transition, do a text animation so the name flys in or does a bunch of other things. You can also create an animation preset that works on in and out points of a layer and make the layers do all kinds of things. I have about 100 of these that I created and I purchased some from my friend Stu like these: Prolost Burns,, and these: Prolost Boardo

All I would do to create a slide show is select all of my photos in the Project Panel and choose new composition from selection. Then I would estimate how long I wanted each photo to be on the screen and set an out point for each layer using Alt/Option + ], then the Keyframe assistant to sequence the layers with an appropriate overlap. Then I would add my text layer, add the animation preset that generates the name from the layer below, add any animation or effects to the text, trim it to length, then duplicate the text layer enough times to cover all of the layers I want to give a title to and arrange them in the timeline. If all my photos had one label color I could select all of them in the timeline by clicking on the layer color and choosing Select Group (I think that is what it says) then I would pick my favorite transition animation preset and apply it to all of them at the same time. The last step would be to add a music track and throw in some markers for beats and fine tune the in and out points of the animation. A 10 minute slide show using this kind of workflow would take about a half hour to complete and send off to be rendered. Working with each of the images in a pre-comp and animating things by hand the same kind of slide show would probably take a couple of days.

Here's one of the animation presets that I give away. Move any layer into its hero position and adjust the scale and rotation. Set an in and out point and the layer will fly in from the left, bounce to a stop and then just before the out point it will fall off the screen. Dropbox - flyInBounceDropOut.ffx

That's how you work efficiently. Anything you think you are going to repeat save as an animation preset. It will save you hours and hours of work.