Adobe After Effects CS4 - Manual (Page 628)

622 USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Markers and metadata
Last updated 12/21/2009
Adobe Encore can read chapter references in After Effects layer markers when you export to the AVI or MPEG-2 file
format or use Dynamic Link. To be compatible with DVD format, make sure that markers are at least 15 frames
apart.
Cue points in FLV files can each have any number of parameters, each with a name and a value. You can only add three
parameters using the marker dialog box. To work with more than three parameters, use the scripting interface.
To convert selected properties to cue point parameters in layer markers, choose File > Scripts > Convert Selected
Properties To Markers.jsx. This script adds a layer marker on the layer at the same time as each keyframe for each
selected property. The markers’ cue point parameters indicate the name of the property and its value at that time. If the
selected property has an expression, a marker is created for each frame, with the values sampled at each frame.
On his blog on the Adobe website, Michael Coleman provides a demonstration of how to convert tracking data in After
Effects into cue point data for use in Flash.
To create a web link, chapter link, or cue point from a marker, do the following:
1 Double-click a marker to open the marker dialog box.
2 Enter information in the appropriate boxes in the marker dialog box:
• To create a web link, enter a Uniform Resource Locator in the URL box in the Chapter And Web Links area of the
marker dialog box. To activate a specific frame in a site, enter the filename of the frame for Frame Target.
• Enter the chapter name and number (if available) in the Chapter box in the Chapter And Web Links area of the
marker dialog box.
• Enter a name for the cue point, and names and values for any parameters. Select Event or Navigation to determine
what kind of cue point to create.
Scripts and utilities for working with markers
Paul Tuersley provides a script on the AE Enhancers forum for splitting layers at layer markers.
Lloyd Alvarez provides scripts on the After Effects Scripts website that do the following:
• Magnum, the Edit Detector automatically detects edits in a footage layer and places a layer marker at each edit (or
splits the layer into a separate layer for each edit).
• Zorro, the Layer Tagger allows you to tag layers and then select, shy, and solo layers according to their tags. The
tags are appended to comments in the Comments column in the Timeline panel and can also be added as layer
markers.
• Layer Marker Rename and Number renames and numbers all markers on selected layers.
Jeff Almasol provides scripts on his redefinery website that do the following:
• rd_CopyMarkers copies layer markers from one layer to any number of other layers.
• rd_KeyMarkers creates new layer markers (either on the selected layer or on a new null layer) with comments that
provide information about keyframes at the same times.
• rd_MapTextFileToMarkers sets keyframes for the Source Text property of a text layer and sets the values to text
from a text file. The keyframes are placed at times specified by layer markers on the text layer.
• rd_MarkerNavigator creates a panel that makes navigating to markers and viewing their comments and other
values very convenient.
• rd_RemoveMarkers automatically removes markers from selected layers based on specified criteria (e.g., all
markers in work area).