Create Linked Effects

Moderator: Paul Tuersley

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Paul Tuersley
Posts: 704
Joined: June 5th, 2004, 7:59 am
Location: London, UK

This script takes the currently selected effects and creates new versions
that are linked to the original 'master' effects using expressions.

Copy/paste these new 'linked' effects around your project, then when you
change a value on one of the master effects, that value will also change
on all linked versions in the project.

Download CreateLinkedEffects_v1.2.zip

Note: This script requires After Effects 6.5 or later.

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How it works :

1/Select an effect on a layer in TLW or the ECW

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2/Apply the script

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3/The dialog box to select your options (in this case I left it at the default settings)

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4/The result in the TLW

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5/And the expressions that were created. Now you can copy the linked effects and paste them wherever needed.

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Paul Tuersley
Posts: 704
Joined: June 5th, 2004, 7:59 am
Location: London, UK

I've posted a v1.2 update to this script which fixes the layout of the main dialog box on AE7 (well on the Mac at least).
Blabberlicious
Posts: 2
Joined: May 22nd, 2007, 12:34 am

Many thanks for this script!

Just what I needed today, as luck would have it.
pandora
Posts: 2
Joined: December 10th, 2007, 4:54 am

hello, came to this page via a link posted on a question i made @ cgtalk. It seems really interesting but can this apply to link transformation (orientation, position & opacity) bettween 3D layers? my problem was that i wanted to link a 3D layer to a pre-comp that also consisted of layers moving in 3D space. How can i do that? have u got any clue? my original post was on this link

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread. ... ost4825649

thanx
Paul Tuersley
Posts: 704
Joined: June 5th, 2004, 7:59 am
Location: London, UK

This script won't do that, but it's easy enough to do using the expression pickwhip.

Drag the precomp's timeline tab out into another panel, so you can see both timelines at the same time. Then twirl open the layer properties, so the ones you want to link are visible. Add an expression to each property in your main comp and drag the expression pickwhip to the property you want to link it to in the precomp. You should end up with expressions that look something like:

Code: Select all

comp("Precomp").layer("precomp_layer").transform.position;
pandora
Posts: 2
Joined: December 10th, 2007, 4:54 am

It works just fine the way you described it! Thanx soooo much, you got me out of a lot of pain trying to do all that manually..I didnt know that u could open more than one timeline at the same time..it made sence once u said! thanx again.. :D
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