Replace Text to individual comps

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byronnash
Posts: 321
Joined: July 7th, 2004, 2:30 pm
Location: Charlotte, NC
Contact:

I am still new at scripting so my script is still a little sloppy, but I hope it can help give someone a springboard on doing a similar operation. There are several areas that will need to be tweaked to get it to work for your situation. Hope you like it! -Byron

Download Script http://armoredsquirrel.com/scripts/TextReplace.jsx

Download Project and script http://armoredsquirrel.com/scripts/TextReplace.zip
Last edited by byronnash on August 23rd, 2004, 7:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
byronnash
Posts: 321
Joined: July 7th, 2004, 2:30 pm
Location: Charlotte, NC
Contact:

I will try to describe the script here to help people decide if this will help them.

I had a project that we used to create what they call "interstitials", quick text animations in between segments of a show. They would give us scores if not hundreds of lines of text to be entered in and rendered out to tape. Needless to say, it was tedious and in desparate need of help.

My script uses pieces of Dan Ebberts script. It looks at a text file you specify and takes each line and copies it into a text layer of a comp.
My project file has two comps, a two line and a single line animation. For each line in the text file, it decides if it is a one word or two word line. If it is a two word line it uses the two line comp and vice versa. If the word is longer than a certain amount it scales the text line down and moves the anchor point up to keep it centered. The script generates a new comp for each text line and gives it a number preceding the compname. The comp name is the same as the text line. At the end, the script pulls all the comps into a master comp and sequences them out with 5 seconds of time in between. I know that seems like a lot and there are a lot of custom areas that will have to be changed to get it to work for something else.

Tips:
Make sure there is not an extra line return at the end of your text file.

It acts a little weird if the text line has more than two words, you may have to manually tweak those after the script is done.
glennser
Posts: 7
Joined: June 17th, 2004, 1:58 pm

I hope you still remember making this as it was such a long time ago.....

Anyway I can't get it to work, should the zip file contain a template project? It stops at the line setting the variables (line 88 in v2), my scripting abilities suck but I guessed that if I made two comps first it would get past this, it worked but then stalls looking for text layer 3 (it makes the interstitials comp and a second comp with the same name as the first line of text), I tried making dummy text layers with no luck.
Anyway let me say thanks for writing this script, it's definitely the start of what I need (similar situation as yours, need to make hundreds of text elements, have an xls with the text), if you get a chance please let me know what I'm doing wrong, I'm very grateful for the script in the first place and apologize for not being able to figure out what I'm doing wrong.
Glennser
PS what does your note about it getting a little squirrelly (no offense to your website, cool name by the way) with more than two words? Did you mean more than two lines?
byronnash
Posts: 321
Joined: July 7th, 2004, 2:30 pm
Location: Charlotte, NC
Contact:

I'll take a look at it tomorrow, today has been crazy. About the two lines thing. The way I had it working was that it tried to split the words into two lines depending on how many words there were. I have a version that I can post that I fixed that and it can handle longer sentences and intelligently split them into two lines.

Stay tuned...
glennser
Posts: 7
Joined: June 17th, 2004, 1:58 pm

Great!! Seeing as no-one had even replied to your posts back in 2004 I was afraid you'd have lost interest, didn't expect a reply from you so soon.
Just out of interest do you know how many people have downloaded it? I remember seeing it soon after you posted it and thinking that it was a really useful script, I knew I'd have to use it one day, I'm actually surprised it's taken this long.
Glennser
byronnash
Posts: 321
Joined: July 7th, 2004, 2:30 pm
Location: Charlotte, NC
Contact:

The zip file that you linked to contains my most recent text script. The AE file is very simple. I can't seem to find the AE project that goes with that version at the moment. The Speed_Interstitial script is very similar, I can send you that project to look at if you want. Send me an email and I'll get it out to you. byron (at) snap5 (dot) tv
rola
Posts: 2
Joined: December 28th, 2007, 9:05 pm

byronnash,Thanks.I'm a new action script, your posts will give me some help.
schnackyb
Posts: 1
Joined: June 30th, 2008, 10:58 am

Hello,

I need to operate a similar function with ae script. Basically there will be three fields that read in from a text file. All simple so far... They need to animate in however with a revealing quality to them. Basically, the text fields need to contain random letters/icons of my choosing in a cycling order (like a slot machine) and as time progresses, they stop on a specific letters to form the words contained in the text file. What I don't want is a literal slot machine. I don't want vertically cycling random letters/icons. What I picture is constantly changing letters/numbers, that eventually rest on the final word.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Theoreon
Posts: 7
Joined: July 17th, 2008, 12:34 pm
Location: Frankfurt/Main Germany

Dear Scriptionados,

i´m new here, so please be patient.

i´ve red this old(er) thread http://www.aenhancers.com/viewtopic.php ... hilit=font about the possibility to change fonts projectwide, or lets say for several comps at once. I´m posting on this younger Thread in hope someone will read on.

i already sent feature requests to the Adobe Team but not much have changed.

so i´ve tried to contact Jeffrey Almasol from redefinery.com few days ago and he kindly wrote me back:
as for your request, unfortunately there isn't a way to change the font information via script at this time. please file a feature request for this functionality.
i´m in the same position as the person which:
have 800+ question screens for an interactive DVD which all need bold removed from the text.
but just a few more screens where the whole Font Family + Size has to be changed :cry:

Where to go in this Case? to the madhouse or a bar?
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lloydalvarez
Enhancement master
Posts: 460
Joined: June 17th, 2004, 9:27 am
Location: New York City, NY
Contact:

not sure if this would work, but try changing the name of the font to trick it into thinking it's the same font, but it's actually the new font.. does that make sense? Might need to do this in a font editor.. not sure.

-Lloyd
Theoreon
Posts: 7
Joined: July 17th, 2008, 12:34 pm
Location: Frankfurt/Main Germany

Hi,

thanks man. i´ll give it a try, but i do not believe that this is an easy way with fonts on a mac.
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