About This Guide - Adobe 65009963 Scripting Manual

Overview
The After Effects Scripting Guide demonstrates how to take procedural control of your After Effects projects via
scripting. This feature set is available in Adobe® After Effects® CS3 Professional Edition.
With the use of system-level scripting, you can streamline your render pipeline and avoid a lot of repetitive
pointing and clicking. If you have used expressions or other JavaScript-like techniques for animating, or
worked with system scripting in AppleScript or Visual Basic, you will recognize the power of application
scripting in After Effects. With some practice, and with sufficient experience using the JavaScript language, you
can take control of your graphics pipeline.
If you are new to scripting
After Effects is a visual tool with a graphical user interface; you are used to interacting with it via interface
elements such as menus, panels, and icons. For the most part, this is the most accessible way to work. Scripting
is designed for situations in which this methodology involves tedious repetition or painstaking searching and
sorting that could be automated. Scripting can be a shortcut around tedious tasks that would otherwise involve
repetitious pointing and clicking. It is also useful for leveraging the power of networked rendering in situations
where Watch Folder is less powerful (and less convenient to set up). See "Examples" on page 173 for examples
of what scripts can do.
If you are new to scripting, see Adobe Introduction to Scripting, which introduces basic scripting concepts and
describes different scripting languages that are available, including JavaScript. JavaScript and other scripting
languages are object-oriented, and this book also describes the basic concepts of object-oriented programming
and document object models.
Even if you have no inclination to learn the JavaScript language, you can still harness the power of scripting via
third-party solutions such as Rush Network Render Queue, a graphical user interface to set up distributed
renders from any computer on the network without having to set up on individual machines.
You can also leverage the contributions of scripting users who share scripts with other users. Larger studios
may have such users in-house, while other users can visit forums such as those found at
.
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About this guide

This guide is for users who manage a graphics pipeline (which may include other scriptable applications as
well) and who want to write scripts to add custom capabilities to After Effects.
This functionality is also offered via third-party network rendering management solutions. These products
feature software designed to help manage this process, so it is possible to take advantage of this functionality
without having to perform manual editing of scripts.
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