With some plug-ins, scripts and extensions, you wish you had known about them long before the start of the last project, in our case, a 100-minute archive documentary with over 1,000 individual media files. The “Project Sorter” script saves a lot of time when editing and post-processing larger projects, especially when it comes to sorting and cataloguing different media types.. Project Sorter is a bit like the post office clerk who sorts letters by city, district and street – only for media, not for direct mail items.

How Project Sorter works

But first things first… Who hasn’t been there: you find (or receive) one (or more) media files, drag them into Adobe Premiere (or After Effects) for processing, and leave them at the highest project level until you completely lose track of them and grudgingly (or the intern) start putting all the elements away individually and neatly in the bins provided for them. Only to be faced with the same problem of a completely overloaded project level a week later.

Project Sorter provides a fully automatic remedy here by sorting the elements into the correspondingly defined bins during import (including drag-and-drop directly into the timeline). Sounds simple? It should be, provided you make the effort and define a reasonably well thought-out order at the start of the project – which is actually common practice for larger productions. If even this first step is too time-consuming, you can simply rely on the “demo” settings supplied with the script to ensure at least basic sorting into audio and video bins.

Setup

The actual script can be found under Window -> Extensions and opens a three-column mask where the corresponding sorting parameters are defined. The user is not only limited to the type of file, for example video, sound or images, but can also search through metadata and file paths via a second column in order to carry out a precise sub-sorting.

An example: If you organise your raw material on the hard drive according to days and recorded cards, you can specify in the Project Sorter that all media from shooting day XY of card 1 (with the corresponding path on the hard drive) are also stored in the project bin with the same name. The secret lies in so-called sub-filters that can be defined within the “Video” filter column.

Project Sorter even goes so far as to change not only the names of the bins but also the names of the elements within Premiere (or After Effects). Instead of an element in Premiere being generically named “KLB0011.MXF”, it can be automatically renamed to “[creation-date] [creation time] cam 01″, which makes it much easier to find the clip again (if the editor knows the shooting date and time).

To perform a sort, the small chain symbol above the Project Sorter window must be activated. If you click on the “Play” button after an import, the bins are created, renamed and sorted automatically. If the link button remains pressed, the sorting function is also permanently activated, but this is not necessarily to the user’s advantage, as a file that is imported immediately disappears in the corresponding bin and must first be found there again. To avoid immediate sorting, deactivate the linking, import the element, process it in the timeline or comp, and reactivate the linking later, for example at the end of the working day (or if you lose track after a few hours), to restart the automatic sorting.

Subtleties

The Project Sorter includes lots of individual options and parameters, most of which you will never need in your entire professional life. What proves to be very useful, however, is the fact that you can add new sorting filters for each project using the ” ” symbol. The filter collections are retained and are not saved with the project so that the user can also access old settings at a later date.

In addition to the file type and creation date, the very useful sorting parameters also include file extensions, so that PSD and PNG files, for example, are not only sorted into one image folder but into different bins, as well as image sizes and resolutions, which can be used to separate HD, 4K and 6K material in the project. You can also sort by frame rates, alpha channels and multicam clips. In addition to the aforementioned sorting and renaming of project elements, the “Actions”, i.e. the tasks that the Project Sorter performs automatically, also include adding labels and automatic scaling to the active frame size.

Conclusion

The Project Sorter is not very easy to understand at first (which even the programmer admits), but once you have got behind the logic of the script, the sorter makes a lot of work steps easier that you either regularly procrastinate on, or the user may generally shy away from, for example renaming video elements according to shooting days and cards.

So if you don’t shy away from the time it takes to familiarise yourself with the software and invest 50 US dollars, you will save yourself many, many hours of work in the long run. Work hard, sort fast, retire young.

Info box

Leyero – Project Sorter v1.75: Script for automatic sorting and naming of media files.
Price for Project Sorter 1.75: USD 50
Host application: from After Effects / Premiere 2022
Further information: https://aescripts.com/project-sorter

The post Work Hard, Sort Fast: Project Sorter 1.75 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Andreas Zerr.

Having recently looked at the After Effects scripts circuit FX, mazeFX and quadrateFX from the Greek manufacturer Real Creations, in this second part we take a look at the other three effects in the RealFX bundle, which can be purchased from aescripts.com for just over USD 140. If you don’t mind the cost or only really need one of the six tools, you can also purchase them individually for between USD 30 and USD 40.

easyRulers 2: Rulers and sliders

Whether a simple ruler, clock face, tempo display, volume, diagram or progress bar, the controllers of easyRulers 2 can be used for almost anything that needs to be visualised using numbers and indices.

The script initially offers the user two options: A straight line or a circle, with a corresponding number of dashes or dots between the digits. Further options are the shape and spacing of the dashes/dots as well as the display of digits, start and end numbers, their size and colour.

Once the user has selected all options and clicks on the “Create Ruler” button, a new shape appears in the composition with a number of text layers corresponding to the number of digits.

If you click on the shape layer, the extensive effect controls of easyRulers appear. Here the user defines, for example, the gaps between the indices, the width, the height, the colours and the distance between the digits and the dashes/dots. A pointer can also be optionally displayed and designed. If the “Wiggle” option is also activated, the pointer moves according to defined patterns. All other elements can be animated via the individual parameters using keyframes.

Conclusion

It should be noted that easyRulers does not create such elaborate animations at the touch of a button as the presentation on the website might suggest. easyRulers 2 is a script for generating fairly simple shapes and figures, not much more. Everything that the artists on the RealFX website have made out of it requires extensive and not to be underestimated post-processing. Nonetheless, easyRulers is a very good and easy-to-understand basis for designing any kind of controller and display. What you do with it is up to you.

Info box: Real Creations – easyRulers v2

easyRulers 2.02: USD 40
Host application: from After Effects CC
Further information: https://aescripts.com/easyrulers

LoadUP 1.7: Load bars and circles

The LoadUP script makes it easy to generate different load bars with or without pointers and numbers. The LoadUP script from Real Creations works in a very similar way to easyRuler 2, with the difference that here it is a matter of loading and render bars or similar types of graphics arranged in a circle. And, there are presets from which the user can choose not only simple but also quite sophisticated templates. As with all other RealFX scripts, you first create a composition, load the control panel from the window menu and make the first decisions here: Should the loading bar be straight or curved, what size and width, should there be a pointer, additional digits, for example percentages, should these follow the display, and what alignment and colour should the numbers have. If you want to leave everything to chance, use the three “Randomise” settings.

In contrast to other RealFX tools, there is also a “Presets” button within the LoadUP window. Here, the user can choose from a variety of ready-made bars and pie charts (20 each, to be precise), some of which are modelled on real progress and loading bars such as those from YouTube, while others are more playful. Nevertheless, the templates are mostly professionally designed and save the user a lot of manual work.

To fine-tune the graphics, click on the corresponding shape layer in the composition, whereupon the effect controls open. Here you will find the options to animate the progress of the graphic, to adjust the colours and any existing reflection, to determine the width and height of the indices and to define the size and spacing of the numbers. All options have keyframes so that the graphics can be easily animated to your own taste.

Conclusion

Thanks to the extensive templates and the easy-to-use settings, even beginners can quickly achieve results that are really worth seeing. With a price of only USD 30, LoadUP is therefore an all-round recommendable script if you often want to design loading or progress bars or simply visualise figures and diagrams.

Info box: Real Creations – LoadUP v1.7

LoadUP 1.7: USD 30
Host application: From After Effects CC
Further information: https://aescripts.com/loadup

keyboardFX 1.5 – Virtual keyboards

The last tool in our RealFX series from the Greek manufacturer Real Creations conjures up virtual keyboards on the After Effects screen. As with all the other tools, these are shape layers with optional text layers. If you call up the keyboardFX window, a handful of templates are available from which you can select an Apple keyboard (in white or black), older or newer Windows keyboards and even a Commodore 64.

Right at the start, the user can also enter a text to be typed and specify whether the keyboard labelling is to be displayed. If you then click on “Generate Keyboard”, keyboardFX generates the corresponding layers in the composition (the text layers for the keyboard labelling are set to “shy”).

Although keyboardFX also involves lovingly designed forms, they are nonetheless quite simple, which means that it still requires a lot of skilful manual work to create an elaborately designed keyboard from the script. In contrast to videos of animated keyboards, which can be found in image and video databases, the keystrokes can be animated within keyboardFX. To do this, the user can either use a so-called “speed slider” or activate optional markers in the settings, which are moved within the shape layer depending on the desired keystroke speed.

After generating a keyboard, the user has two shape layers available in the comp, each with its own effects control. For the actual keys, the user can use the slider to define the speed at which they are pressed (including an optional forward movement), the height and width of the keys, the colouring of the letters and the keystrokes as well as other tweaks for the shape and appearance of the keyboard housing. The user also defines the appearance of the keystrokes, i.e. the “glow” of the keys, via the “Glow” level. Each key on the keyboard has also been assigned a special command so that, in addition to simple words, key combinations or function keys can also be pressed virtually (Home, Arrow, F1 to F12, etc.).

Conclusion

As usual with Real Creations, the script is very easy to use and you can quickly achieve pleasing results, although understanding the correct keystrokes and the corresponding timing requires some time and patience. The script only generates very simple shapes, which can be further processed into more complex graphics in more extensive compositions. The great advantage of the script lies in the user-defined keystrokes and the sophisticated options for the keystroke speed. For a price of USD 30, keyboardFX saves the user a lot of manual labour that would otherwise be involved in designing keyboards.

keyboardFX v1.5: Script for creating different keyboards

keyboard 1.5: USD 30
Host application: from After Effects CC
Further information: https://aescripts.com/keyboardfx

The post RealFX Part 2: From the loading bar to the keyboard first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Andreas Zerr.

On the one hand, this is due to the growing functional scope of the host programmes, which already offer increasingly powerful functions with or without AI support. On the other hand, a wave of stock footage and template platforms such as envato/Video Hive, which offer unlimited downloads for as little as 15€ per month, has overrun us in an almost inflationary fashion. So why design effects yourself when one click is enough to move almost anything imaginable to your local computer?

However, some manufacturers are still bucking this trend, including the aescripts plugins portal. Aescripts is not so much a manufacturer as a platform where interested users can obtain effects from various companies, usually at very reasonable prices. The company Real Creations from Greece, for example, offers self-made scripts for creating geometric shapes, HUDs and dashboards, among other things. The so-called RealFX Bundle comprises six effects, which can be purchased individually for USD 30 to USD 40 or as a complete package for USD 140. We will take a closer look at the contents of this package in two parts.

circuitFX: PCBs at the touch of a button

It may sound a little surprising, but the circuitFX plug-in creates virtual PCBs. These are not physically or electrotechnically correct construction plans, but rather randomly created designs, either with or without components. The user first creates a composition, selects the size of the desired circuit board, the number of connections, optionally clicks on the insertion of any number of chips, capacitors and resistors, and the circuit board is ready.

Basically, the script only generates shapes and lines that can be found as one element in the comp. Using the effect control, the user can customise the individual elements of the design to their own taste: From the size of the components and the width of the connections to the colouring and size of the end points. If you don’t like the original design, simply click on “Create Circuit” again and a new proposal will be created. As these are, as mentioned, separate layers, you can easily switch back and forth between new designs until you have found the design you want.

To create logos or other visual content, cut-outs and masks are also available, the contents of which can be filled with other elements. Each individual object on the circuit board can be animated via the effect control using keyframes and even distorted with additional filters to simulate interesting illusions such as flowing electricity or the temporal structure of a circuit board.

Conclusion

As with most plug-ins, it is a bit of a mystery as to which applications circuitFX can actually be used for. Until the moment when the script becomes really useful. For USD 30, the plug-in is not too expensive and very easy to use. If the worst comes to the worst, it saves the user the considerable effort of having to build circuit boards using their own moulds.

Real Creations – circuitFX
circuitFX 1.9: 30 Us-Dollars
Host application: After Effects CC
Further information: https://aescripts.com/after-effects/design-tools/circuitfx

mazeFX: mazes with one click

MazeFX works in a very similar way to circuitFX, although it does not generate circuit boards but mazes: You create a comp, select the size of the maze and optionally a null object which follows the path through the maze, and click on “Create Maze”. The script then creates a new shape layer in the sequence, which contains both the walls and a “solution” that you can display and animate to your own taste. The width and roundness of the walls, colours and other options can be defined via the effect settings.

If an optional null object is selected, it can be animated over time using keyframes and any objects can follow the null object through the maze. The maze is also a shape layer, which appears as an independent element in the composition. Clicking on “Create Maze” again and again generates new mazes from which you can select a favourite for further processing.

Conclusion

Once again, the question arises: Have I ever needed a maze in the last few decades? If the answer to this question is “yes”, mazeFX is a cost-effective, recommendable and extremely easy-to-use solution at USD 30.

Real Creations – mazeFX
mazeFX 1.4: 30 US-Dollars
Host application: After Effects CC
Further information: https://aescripts.com/mazefx

quadrateFX: Random rectangles

If you need a more or less random number of rectangles instead of (or in addition to) circuit boards and labyrinths, quadrateFX is the tool of your choice. Similar to mazeFX and circuitFX, quadrateFX consists of a separate window in which you define the basic settings, such as the number of rectangles required, the randomness of the shapes and the distribution of horizontal and vertical elements. Optionally, you can also generate a separate layer for each rectangle, as well as numbers and texts within the rectangles (as separate text elements, as it were). Finally, simply click on “Generate random Quads” and the desired number of rectangles will appear. If you don’t like the first layout, simply press the button again, and again, and again, until the desired effect appears.

The elements generated by quadrateFX are again independent layers in the timeline: The user can choose whether all rectangles are assigned to a layer, or whether each rectangle should be an independent comp element (which definitely gets a bit confusing if you still have text layers added). The great advantage of combining into one layer is the optional settings: Here you can define the distances between the rectangles and the colour of the lines as well as their width and opacity.

A feature that has only been added since the new version 1.5 is the option to use external sources for the colouring of the rectangles. If you select an element from the composition in the “sampled quads” area, quadrateFX analyses the image and creates the rectangles according to the values defined by the user: The more colour differences there are in the image, the more rectangles are generated at this point. Any existing sky is therefore depicted with larger areas, whereas the actual motif appears smaller. The effect of using samples is therefore particularly suitable for transition or reveal effects, for example.

Conclusion

quadrateFX is a simple script that is very quick to learn and only costs USD 30 for the individual version. Anyone who often has to deal with the display of values or is looking for interesting image effects will find quadrateFX a helpful tool. The only disadvantage: Unfortunately, it is not possible to generate rectangles based on figures, for example external tables. If you want to visualise concrete values, quadrateFX also requires a lot of manual work and calculation.

Real Creations – quadrateFX
quadrateFX 1.5: 30 US-Dollars
Host application: After Effects CC
Further information: https://aescripts.com/quadratefx

The post RealFX Part 1: Perfectly formed scripts first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Andreas Zerr.