Create List (credit roll) from Spreadsheet?

[dave]

I am a little lost on this one part of templater - I have a list of names and images they want to be displayed next to the name - but need a variable-sized comp based on each list of names/images (the image will just be the same size image to show country of origin). Is this possible with a templater? Or do I need to make pre-comps of each name/picture - then have them “stack” to make a “list” - this is kind of like a credit roll just with images!

[Jeff]

@dave

Hmm, that’s a bit of a tricky scenario. By default, Templater can’t resize a Composition based on values in the data. However, Templater Bot has a feature called Event Scripts that allows users to run custom ExtendScripts at various points throughout the process. These sorts of scripts can be used to expand Templater’s capabilities dramatically and would most likely work for what you’re describing. With all that in mind, I can think of a couple of different ways that this might be implemented.

The first would be a relatively simple script to set the Comp height based on a value read from the Templater Data. It should be pretty simple to use the $D.job.get command to get a specific value from the Templater data and then use the mycomp.height Extendscript command to map the size read from the Data Source to the appropriate Comp. This would be a pretty simple script, but it would require that the height be manually configured for each Job.

The other option would be to write a more complex ExtendScript that would read all the values that would be present in the Comp and then make the same height adjustment based on the amount of data detected. This would be a bit more complex since this sort of script would require some logic rather than just bluntly setting the Comp height to a specific value.

If you’re interested, one of our pre-made Autografs, “Live Sports Stats,” uses a similar ExtendScript to dynamically adjust the Project layout depending on how much data is present. If you want to contact the creator, Tomas Bumbulevicius, they might be available for some contract work along these lines. Feel free to reach out to them at t.bumbulevicius@gmail.com.

Hopefully, that gets you pointed in the right direction, but if you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch, and we’ll do what we can to help out.

Thanks,

Jeff

[dave]

ah - that’s a great idea. I think I can also use a combo of a real credit based script…just need to wrap my head around it. Is that a change templater can replace a text layer or text with an image? sounds crazy - but that is where my head is at right now!!!

if my credit script can spit out the following
First Last - USA

Could that turn into:
First Last - usa.png

Sound weird - but I think I just hit a mental wall for the day!!!

[Jeff]

@dave

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, it’s not possible to change a text layer to a footage layer dynamically in After Effects. From what I can see, this appears to be due to the fact that AE sets each layer’s type when it’s first created, and text layers seem to be using an entirely different logic engine than footage layers.

If I understand the scenario that you’re describing and you’re using Google Sheets, our best bet might be to use some Sheets formulas to turn “First Last - usa.png” into two cells that contain “First Last” and “usa.png”. That would be data that would be more useable for Templater since the “usa.png” value could be set to refer to footage, and the “First Last” input could be added to a corresponding text layer.

Hopefully, that helps, but if you have any other questions, please let us know, and we’ll see what we can do.

Thanks,

Jeff