Mask, Path to Text in and out

[Ridvan]

Hi, Dataclay Team.
I am working on a drawing project where I should communicate drawing path/mask coordinates back and forth with the front end as text files.

Path Property — After Effects Expression Reference 0.0.3 documentation

Is there any possibility to change the path/mask coordinates back from text input?

[ariestav]

@Ridvan Are you wanting Templater to do this? If so, you can use the Templater Events together with the Templater ExtendScript API to write co-ordinates out to a text file.

If you’re not using Templater, you simply need to write your own ExtendScript to read co-ordinates and write them to a text file.

Please help me understand the context of the application you need to do this in.

[Ridvan]

@ariestav Yes. The intention is to use it with the templater. Where the user can draw a line or a path in a Front End, translate into a text (templater updates), Send info as text to back end, translate into a mask or a path in AE then render. Don’t know if that is possible or is any better way to get this sorted?

[ariestav]

You’ll definitely need to encode the mask’s coordinates as text into a JSON object that will eventually be read by Templater as a render job. That data can be read by an ExtendScript that you write using the Templater ExtendScript API and which should probably be registered to the “After Update” event. Custom ExtendScripts can read job data — you just need to look at the API reference to get it.

In the ExtendScript you write, you will likely need to make use of the $D.job.get(<key>) method.

Let me know if you need a simplified example.

Thanks,
Arie

[Ridvan]

A simplified example would be awesome. Thanks. Appreciate!