change values of a Mogrt in premiere

[Producer storyteller]

hey Adobe community. I do have a question about mogrt but it is way too difficult to explain So I made a loom video. Please let me know if this can be done.

https://www.loom.com/share/1ee14cf835cf49b3997b79aa9a36448b

Thanks

[jstrawn]

Time permitting, could you remove media and other non-essentials from that Ae project and send it to me?... Perhaps even just that text layer with the slider, expression and keyframes intact... whatever I need to repro it myself on any system.

[DaciaSaenz · Accepted solution]

Hi @Producer storyteller,

Keyframed properties that get added to the Essential Graphics Panel as a control lose their animation on export to Mogrtland because the control can only represent 1 value at a time. Keyframed properties by nature have multiple values so it’s not technically possible for that 1 control to change values over time.
The control in Premiere can only tell Tiny Inception After Effects (nested inside Premiere Pro to make Mogrts work) “make this Opacity 60” ... it can’t tell Tiny Inception AE, “make the opacity go from 20 - 60 in 3 seconds from time 1 to time 4.”

One slider can only be one value once we're in Premiere Pro. 

So! Instead of adding the keyframed slider itself, we just need to abstract things a bit.
There are a couple of ways to accomplish this.

We could:  
- Add two sliders to control the value for each of the keyframes and then use a linear expression to make it all come together.

- Or we could even hook up text controls to be the input control for those values.  

I've added two example mogrts with each of these approaches in this link. 

• https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Le8aRDp5PZLqJg7VPT1CVcfcLhpZOfNk?usp=sharing  

You can open up the Mogrt natively in AE with the following steps: 

1. Launch AE
2. Use File > Open
3. Select the Mogrt file
4. Follow the dialog that pops up and asks you what folder you want top extract the project to
5. and boom you've got the .aep
   Every Mogrt has the .aep and related media inside :sparkles:

The Number Range mogrt uses two sliders to drive keyframe 1 and keyframe 2 values + a linear expression. 
This is the most basic set up and the drawback here is that the animation gets distracting when the number goes from singles, to tens, to hundreds. We'd prefer the first number not to move on the first digit and just expand from there. You may already have an expression that is performing this for you in your project so you may need to do some work to marry these functions. 

The second Mogrt in the link uses two text controls and a slightly different approach than the first to keep the numbers counting up smoothly. I wanted to be able to change the font and font style so I chose to use text controls. This means the end-user can only input numbers into the text control. But a comment in the Mogrt can easily guide this. 

You may notice something different about this expression setup when you open it. I'm using a .jsx file with functions that make it a little bit easier to do some complex stuff.  The .jsx file stores a ton of complex code that allows us to use simpler terms for functions, and add arguments to those functions in a clearer way. It's kind of like "wiggle()"... wiggle is actually a really complex block of code that got abstracted to something easier to use. 

The .jsx file in the Mogrt I shared is a collection of functions that are meant to make complex expressions a bit easier to get into, and can improve performance. 

There are about 40 functions that were designed with Mogrt authors in mind. My fave include a few functions called "keyframesToControllers" and "retimeKeyframes" that give you the power to do some really powerful stuff.
Here are some links if you want to learn more about these. 

• How to use the Creative Expression Library
• A glossary of all of the functions in the CEL
• The .jsx file needed to use the functions in the CEL and sample project

There is also another collection of functions that are really cool too if you want to go down a rabbit hole. 

https://www.motiondeveloper.com/tools/aefunctions 

I hope this gives you enough to get your Mogrt where you want! And please reach out if you have any follow-up questions. 

Cheers,

Dacia

[MyerPj]

Dacia, please come back an post more answers... very cool 🙂

[DaciaSaenz]

You're too sweet @MyerPj 

💖

I do my best! 

[Producer storyteller]

Dacia:

Thank you so much. I'll have a look though. Just been swamped at work. but... YOU ARE A ROCK STAR! Thanks again and I'll let you now how it goes.

Best,

Kevin

[jstrawn]

I'm glad that helped. You can forget that part about sending me a test project. That was before I had talked to Dacia and another person about what was actually going on.

[DaciaSaenz]

YAY!!! I hope you're rocking and rolling! 
Your video makes me want to go work on my golf swing! 

Happy to help! 

[PFuerst]

Hey,

interessting. The .jsx file is missing and can't be downloaded anymore from the link.

So to be clear. Right now there is no way to get a value which can be animated in AFX over to PP and still be animatable?

I have a write on Text layer where I have exposed the completion value (from 0 to 100). In AFX I'm still able to keyframe the value and the text writes on. Even if the comp is nested and the value is animated via the essential graphics panel but when I export the MoGrt and import it in PP this value is always a single value which I can adjust and the change is represented in the viewer(50% shows only have the text f.e.) but it can't be keyframed. Why can't this value be keyframed?

Thanks for your help

Best