Keyframe timing with camera layers

[jrbooth1]

Hi. First-time poster here in need of a bit of advice or help.

So, I have a project that I built years ago using Templater that I thought I would never have to revisit. Well, my client has come back and wants to get this thing working again. I’ve got my sea legs back with the basics and figured out time sculpting, which I hadn’t understood before. But now I have a new challenge.

I’m not sure how best to explain this, but I’m going to give it a whirl.

The project is fairly simple. There are sections of layers that are linked to my data source using Templater. They are as follows:
Audio
Headline Text
Description Text
Image

The duration of each section is determined by the duration of the audio file. I’ve got the time sculpting figured out so that the text and image layers adjust with the audio.

But…

In the project, I transition from each section using a camera layer attached to a null. (This is how we did it before AE upgraded their camera controls.) So, the problem I have is that those camera/null keyframes don’t adjust with the duration of the audio. Having to go in and manually adjust those keyframes defeats the whole purpose.

Is there any way, in a situation like this to make the keyframes dynamic?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
-josh

[Jeff]

@jrbooth1

Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately, there’s no way to dynamically reposition keyframes based on the adjustments that Templater makes to a layer. This is mainly due to the way that After Effects handles keyframes. For some reason, Adobe has never given us a programmatic way to manipulate keyframes, so working with them in conjunction with Templater can be a bit tricky.

With all that in mind, I believe it should be possible to achieve the scenario that you’ve laid out here using After Effects Expressions. If we could convert the move from keyframes to an Expression, that should get around the limitations outlined above. Since Expressions are programmatic, they tend to work better with Templater since they’re usually based on timing and values outlined in variables rather than keyframes.

Here are a few resources that might help if you haven’t worked with After Effects Expressions before:

After Effects Expression Basics
After Effects Expression Examples
Amazing Expressions in After Effects
5 After Effects Expressions That’ll Make You a Hero

Finally, we’ve had a lot of success using ChatGPT to generate AE Expressions. Asking the software for Expressions and then tweaking the output can help accelerate the process immensely.

Hopefully, this is enough to get you started, but if you run into any trouble or have any other questions, please feel free to get in touch.

Thanks,

Jeff

[jrbooth1]

@Jeff

Thanks for the info.

I’m familiar with expressions, but far from an expert.

We’ll see how this goes. I’ll circle back either way.

-josh