OK, I had some time to put together this script, I'll go trhough it quickly so tell me if you would rather like a written tutorial.
So it's all pretty simple but there are a few steps:
1) In this case I'm using the selected shapes, even if they're on separate layers. So you need first to loop trough all the selected properties to keep only Shapes:
// Get the selected Shapes in array
for (var i=0; i<comp.selectedLayers.length; i++)
{
// Current layer
layer = comp.selectedLayers;
// Only care about shape layers
if (layer instanceof ShapeLayer)
{
for (var j=0; j<layer.selectedProperties.length; j++)
{
// Current property
property = layer.selectedProperties;
// Only care about Shape objects
if (property.matchName == matchName_shape)
{
// Store the shape
shapes[shapes.length] = readProperty(property);
property.enabled = false;
}
}
// If we don't have a base shape layer yet
// store the current one if we've got shapes in the array
if (firstLayer == null && shapes.length)
{
firstLayer = layer;
}
}
}
Here I store in firstLayer the first Shape Layer found, that's the layer on which I'll create the group. The matchName_... variables are the default match names used by After Effects.
2) You can see I'm not storing the shapes themselves but I use the readProperty function given below. That's because as soon as you'll create a new property the object referencing the selected properties may not be defined anymore.
The readProperty function recursively reads the matchName, name and value of the properties constituting the shape and it's all stored in an array.
function readProperty(prop)
{
var data = new Array();
data.matchName = prop.matchName;
data.name = prop.name;
if (prop.numProperties)
{
for (var i=1; i<= prop.numProperties; i++)
{
data[data.length] = readProperty(prop(i));
}
}
else
{
data.value = prop.value;
}
return data;
}
3) Now we can create the group on firstLayer, which is in fact a shape object:
if (shapeRoot.canAddProperty(matchName_shape))
{
shapeGroup = shapeRoot.addProperty(matchName_shape);
shapeGroup.name = "Shape Group";
shapeGroup("ADBE Vector Materials Group").remove();
...
4) And we can now create clones of the shapes inside that group:
for (var i=0; i<shapes.length; i++)
{
// Create a new shape inside the group
cloneProperty(shapes, shapeGroup(matchName_group));
}
5) So the cloneProperty function simply reads recursively the array created in readProperty and creates new properties accordingly:
// Utility function to create properties recursively
function cloneProperty(data, parent)
{
var clone;
try
{
if (parent.canAddProperty(data.matchName))
{
clone = parent.addProperty(data.matchName);
try { clone.name = data.name; } catch (err) { ; }
}
else
{
clone = parent(data.matchName);
}
if (clone)
{
if (data.length)
{
for (var i=0; i<= data.length; i++)
{
cloneProperty(data, clone);
}
}
else
{
try { clone.setValue(data.value); } catch (err) { ; }
}
}
else
{
alert("Could not add prop: " + data.matchName + " in " + parent.name);
}
}
catch(err)
{
// There must be something wrong in my loop since this point should never be reached, but it is ...
}
}
As I wrote at the end, there must be a problem with the read or clone functions since I had to add a try/catch otherwise the loop was going too deep.
6) Not done here: if you want to delete the original shapes you'll need to look for them using their names I guess, since everytime you'll delete one you won't be able to use a reference to this property previously created. In this case I just toggle their visibility.
___________________________________________________________________
That's about it, here's the full script that you can run to try all this out:
function groupShapesTest(comp)
{
function readProperty(prop)
{
var data = new Array();
data.matchName = prop.matchName;
data.name = prop.name;
if (prop.numProperties)
{
for (var i=1; i<= prop.numProperties; i++)
{
data[data.length] = readProperty(prop(i));
}
}
else
{
data.value = prop.value;
}
return data;
}
// Utility function to create properties recursively
function cloneProperty(data, parent)
{
var clone;
try
{
if (parent.canAddProperty(data.matchName))
{
clone = parent.addProperty(data.matchName);
try { clone.name = data.name; } catch (err) { ; }
}
else
{
clone = parent(data.matchName);
}
if (clone)
{
if (data.length)
{
for (var i=0; i<= data.length; i++)
{
cloneProperty(data, clone);
}
}
else
{
try { clone.setValue(data.value); } catch (err) { ; }
}
}
else
{
alert("Could not add prop: " + data.matchName + " in " + parent.name);
}
}
catch(err)
{
// There must be something wrong in my loop since this point should never be reached, but it is ...
}
}
if (comp && comp instanceof CompItem)
{
// Open the undo group
app.beginUndoGroup("Group Shapes");
// Put a try/catch to avoid any Undo group mismatch
try
{
// Adobe's matchname for all the Shape stuff
var matchName_shape = "ADBE Vector Group";
var matchName_root = "ADBE Root Vectors Group";
var matchName_group = "ADBE Vectors Group";
var firstLayer = null;
var layer;
var property;
var shapes = new Array();
// Get the selected Shapes in array
for (var i=0; i<comp.selectedLayers.length; i++)
{
// Current layer
layer = comp.selectedLayers;
// Only care about shape layers
if (layer instanceof ShapeLayer)
{
for (var j=0; j<layer.selectedProperties.length; j++)
{
// Current property
property = layer.selectedProperties;
// Only care about Shape objects
if (property.matchName == matchName_shape)
{
// Store the shape
shapes[shapes.length] = readProperty(property);
property.enabled = false;
}
}
// If we don't have a base shape layer yet
// store the current one if we've got shapes in the array
if (firstLayer == null && shapes.length)
{
firstLayer = layer;
}
}
}
if (firstLayer)
{
// Now that we have the selected properties,
// Create a new group
var shapeRoot = firstLayer(matchName_root);
var shapeGroup;
if (shapeRoot.canAddProperty(matchName_shape))
{
shapeGroup = shapeRoot.addProperty(matchName_shape);
shapeGroup.name = "Shape Group";
shapeGroup("ADBE Vector Materials Group").remove();
// Now that we have the group,
// Loop through the shapes and creates copies inside the group
for (var i=0; i<shapes.length; i++)
{
// Create a new shape inside the group
cloneProperty(shapes, shapeGroup(matchName_group));
}
}
else
{
alert("ERR > Could not create shape group");
}
// Close the undo group
app.endUndoGroup();
}
else
{
alert("MSG > Please select at least 1 shape.");
}
}
catch (err)
{
var file = err.fileName.split("/");
alert( err.name + " while running the script \"" + file[file.length-1]+ "\" (" + err.line + "):\n" + err.message, "Script Error");
}
}
else
{
alert("MSG > Please open a comp and select at least 1 shape.");
}
}
groupShapesTest(app.project.activeItem);
10
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