Run after effects script without opening after effects?

[Simon_Zettervall]

I have a project as a template. I want to run a script that injects itself with the project and replaces videos and text depending on the contents of my script file. So far so good, but can I run the script without opening after effects GUI? I use this now: afterfx -r c:\script_path\example_script.jsx. Is it considered best practice to have after effects GUI up and running if going to do many script changes on the template? Basically I am looking for the same functionality as aerender with no GUI.

[Mylenium]

To my knowledge scripts cannot change projects without the program actually running. Scripts merely call reflections of the internal commands which only are available when the program runs in full. Perhaps some of that has changed in AE CC, but I'm not aware of it.

Mylenium

[Simon_Zettervall]

Ok, thanks for the answer.

[Byron Nash]

Can a script start AE and open a project with -noui?

[Arie Stavchansky]

Yes.  There are some scripting limitations using -noui, but not many.

[chauffeurdevan · Accepted solution]

-noui

that's it

[amal_lalt6687795]

Hey thanks for your anwser! But I have an issue in my AE. So this is my command line argument "AfterFX.exe -noui -r E:\work\MovieMaker.jsx",I am trying to run this in background without UI,The script is run,and the first process ,the after effects opens in background,after a few seconds it shuts down!. Nothing is done as per the script!.What's the isssue.This happens only when using -noui,else it is working fine.Thakyou for your any help.

[Mathias Moehl]

Maybe your script does things that rely on the UI. If your script uses the app.executeCommand() function, for example, it won't work with -noui (noui = no user interface => no menu)

[amal_lalt6687795]

Thanks for your reply.But I haven't used app.executeCommand() function, anywhere in the script.Thankyou.

[Arie Stavchansky]

It's likely an issue with your script.  You should create some kind of output logging from the script that writes to a file in order to understand where the script is breaking.  Once you have logging function in place, you can wrap your script code within a try { } catch (err) { } statement that can output the actual error message.