Build a Render-Bot in After Effects

In this video tutorial, Joey will show you how to automatically edit, render, and share a motion design project without lifting a finger using Templater 2 from Dataclay.
Download the Project and Learn More: bit.ly/2EhoCAf
Check out Dataclay's Templater: bit.ly/2Epyp88
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Auto-Generated Transcript Below 👇
Joey Korenman (00:01): Hello, Joey here. And in this video, I'm going to show you how to automate after effects. We're going to walk through a few different ways of doing this, including building templates that other human beings can use to save you time. And we're also going to build a completely autonomous render robot using templates from data clay, which is a very cool plugin. You are going to love. There is a lot jam packed into this video. You're going to learn a ton. So let's roll those credits.
Joey Korenman (00:35): Now, automation is all about saving you time. You're the aftereffects artist. You're the one with the expertise and it sure would be nice if you could spend less time doing repetitive tasks and more time doing creative stuff. So the first thing we're going to do is use a really cool feature of after effects and Adobe premier to build a template so that someone who doesn't know after effects can still use your graphics and kick out as many versions as they need. So let's hop into after effects and take a look. So we're going to start with a simple example, and this is a lower third that I have built for a show about birds.
Joey Korenman (01:12): It is pretty amazing, good sound effect and everything. So imagine that you're the after effects artist for this show, and you've designed this lower third, and now a lot of your job is going to be doing versions of this lower third. You know, there could be a dozen, two dozen of these per episode, and really it's just a repetitive task. Changing the name, changing the title and rendering out another version. And then of course at the last minute, something changes. So we are going to make it so that anybody, an editor, assistant editor, anyone who can open up Adobe premiere is going to be able to use this template and change it. So the first thing we need to do is figure out what do we need to give the editor or the producer control over? So obviously the name of the guest and the title of the guest, those are the two things that are going to change.
Joey Korenman (02:01): Everything else will stay the same. So we're going to use a really cool feature called the essential graphics panel. You can find that in the window menu, essential graphics, and it will open up a panel that looks like this. Now, the first thing you need to do is to tell this panel, which comp you actually want to build controls for. So in this case, we're going to set the master comp to lower third. That's this, this comp right here, and this area here, this is where we're basically just going to build a control panel. And we're only going to put in controls for the things we need. We're going to take all of the complexity of aftereffects out of the equation. So let's start with the guests name. So if we come down here to the name type layer and I hit you, you this'll bring up any properties that have been changed from the default.
Joey Korenman (02:44): It's just a shortcut to get me to this source text property. That's the one that I want to give someone control over. And it's as easy as clicking and dragging to the essential graphics panel, letting go. And now we have a control. Now I can rename this into something like guest name, and now you'll see that this is actually linked to that type layer. So if I change it from buck, Finkle to something like a doc, duck Steen or something, you'll see that it automatically updates in the template. All right, then I'm also going to need to put controls in for the title of the guest. So that's line one and line two. There's two type layers here. So let me first come in and grab the source. Text for line one. Now this little message that's popping up is giving me a warning. It's saying that there's an expression on this property. I just dragged in. I'm going to tell you why in a minute. Uh, but basically after effects is just warning me that, you know, this could create some wonky behavior. If you're not aware that there is an expression on the property, I'm just going to say, okay, and I'm going to come up here and I'm going to name this line. Oh one, then I'm going to come down and I'm going to do the same thing with line two.
For the full transcript visit: bit.ly/2EhoCAf

[@JeahnLaffitteAdventures]

This guy really knows what’s up. Thank you!

[@jerometremblay9343]

Thank you Joey! I'm blown away by all these features. Started your book last week and I think the more I read it the closer I am to quit my fulltime job. You're a great inspiration, thank you :)

[@schoolofmotion]

Awesome! Good luck on your adventure! Tag us on social when you finish the book, or when you go freelance!

[@shabnomnom]

man, this is *wild*. i'm so glad i found school of motion. learning all this stuff is hard but it will make my life easier in the long run!

[@plummerdrummer2010]

This tutorial is a game changer!

[@gswinterschatz5558]

I've been using Templater2 for a year. It's insane! I had account fill those spreadsheets, and out came 200 personalized videos. The subscription easily pays for itself if you use it enough.

[@mmohaa]

AMAZING! I love birds and I am a motion designer too. Best tutorial ever.

[@DC9848]

AMAZIIIING. Came up with an idea, was thinking can Adobe products even accomplish what I dream about and then I find DataClay and this extremely helpful tutorial. You sir, made my day. Carry on.

[@IanScroggins]

You are a king, Sir... Which would explain why "you have to know these things, you know". Thanks for all the help, J-Bomb!

[@e11world]

Wow. A great tutorial on so many levels. You guys are solid 👍👍

[@void_media]

Templater is pretty amazing actually. I'm using it to create orbit representation from data sent by my client (apogee/perigee/inclination). Everything is automate from the moment they press the "send data" on the form. I have a render machine that watch constantly the watchfolder and send directly those files to a Dropbox folder where my client can get access to.

[@peacefully665]

Hey, this is very late, but could you teach me how to automatically SEND the files to the client, after template renders it?

[@jaideepkhare5903]

@@peacefully665 You can use Dropbox. Share the folder of your render location to the client. It'll be updated live at their end too.

[@DanNoakes]

I set up a form that links to a google sheet, one tab has the form submission data, I created a second tab to clean it up. My problem is, each time a new form is submitted, a new row is created and causes my "=index()" formula to not work. Do you know a work around for this?

[@dagrial]

Amazing TUT Joey! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. This is definitely a game changer and opens a new niche for MOGRAPH artists.

[@schoolofmotion]

Absolutely... this is going to be big!

[@Seiness]

I was wondering - do After Effects and Media Encoder need to be running on a machine 24/7 to keep this up? So I assume a dedicated PC/server would also be part of the equation, if you wanted the Twitter to always be live?

[@EricFullertonMUSIC]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Templater don't work anymore on newest After Effects version? The panel jsxbin dont load.

[@jvbraganca]

This is gold.

[@schoolofmotion]

Just like your comment :D Thanks!

[@skyevanderwalt5506]

9:55 , quality reference good sir :)

[@schoolofmotion]

It's only a flesh wound.

[@danielhr99]

Which version of Templater should I buy to make a Render-Bot?

[@FernandoFabara]

Joey you just kick my ass, amazing!

[@spiritstudioproductions451]

Sweet Lord this is amazing

[@mackenlyjones]

Check out NexRender! It's free and does most of the same stuff.

[@johola]

yep, the server - client version is little hard to set up, but it looks super flexible.

[@ItsRVV]

Is there a way to connect nexrender to a typeform? I can not find a way to render it automatically

[@andrewmcd]

Hmmmm wonder if you could include a twitter handle section in the typeform then include that in the final tweet in order to notify someone when their video was complete?

[@schoolofmotion]

You definitely could, but you'd need to do a bit of custom development to have it work the way you're thinking. The AME exporter only lets you post to Twitter with the same message each time, it doesn't give you the ability to change that message to include a mention based on the Typeform info. The Twitter API will certainly support uploading videos, though, so a decent software developer could whip up a solution without too much trouble.

[@andrewmcd]

@@schoolofmotion thanks! So much food for thought :)

[@dcellamare55]

Hey Joey love the video! Trying out the free trial, I made a animated character rigged with Duik. I keep running into a problem though, everytime I toggle through the layers, it keeps bringing the layers in the comp into the center of the screen instead of where it's parenented to on the rig. Do you have any advice for this? 🙏

[@AndreTosatti]

holy cow

[@ClipAds]

Can you take text from a form and generate a dynmaic video? if so - its amazing.... And How do you send it on email?

[@schoolofmotion]

Yeah you could definitely set a system like that up. We're sure about the specific tool you would use to send an automatic email, but we've heard of companies creating custom form-based videos that are delivered via email.

[@mori181186]

Thanks for the amazing guide :=) Can i replace footage images with your Guide? I think its the same way with template and Googlesheet?

[@schoolofmotion]

Hey! Yeah you could rig up an AE comp to drop in all sorts of assets into your projects.

[@swipeupco]

Any way to automate a video to export into 10 second splits - for example a 30 second video exported into 10 second cuts? Current having to change the start & end points.

[@susanwojcicki5714]

technique / part 2 starts at 14:40

[@syedikramullah1114]

Plz made bird lower third tutorial..love u sir

[@elroyellis3826]

If you set up the bot for an animation, does AE have to be running on your comp 24/7 to enable it to render and upload?

[@schoolofmotion]

That's the easiest way. I think you can run the bot from the command line as well, and it'll use aerender to render everything in the background.

[@syedikramullah1114]

How to make this lower third plz made a video on this..

[@schoolofmotion]

You can grab the lower-third project file for free here: www.schoolofmotion.com/tutorials/automation-in-after-effects?ref_id=automation-yt-dsk

[@highfivejohn]

Anyone know if you're able to customize the 'status' text in typeform using this workflow? For example, saying something different than "Another one bites the dust...." each time you post

[@colorage]

Should I use Templater Bot version or Templater Rig will be enough?

[@schoolofmotion]

If you want to create the render bot Templater Bot is the way to go.

[@AFX]

Damn, i will probably be a millionaire with this.

[@darrencase2977]

Does anyone know how to link layer opacity and fills to a json file connected to Templater? I've tried the mamoworld.json plug-in, but once I connect that file to Templater, all the links break.Thanks for all your help!

[@isaiahdavis.com_]

I was wondering if you still have these assets available the page is going to a 404 :/

[@schoolofmotion]

Hi there! Looks like we need to update the small URL on the KZbin page. For now you can find the assets on the tutorial page: www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/automation-in-after-effects/

[@PyroMediaStudio]

40:00 Chris do version :)

[@sagarvadaliahacks]

I have a video invitation for marriage where I want to individually send to 500 people with their specify name for personal touch . Is it possible to take name from excel sheet and paste to all 500 videos with different name for example one video inside name is Mr A & B , like wise second video should be Mr Y & Z . I know we can do individual rendering by entering name but I want to be done at one click or easy way to finish the project , a help would save me lots of time and really appreciate if you could help me thanks

[@riazulrahil]

[@barchuk422]

mm.. that python reference is nice.

[@schoolofmotion]

Glad you enjoyed it :D