Importing After Effects MOGRTs and compositions into your project lets you tap into your existing motion graphics and the know-how from creating them with After Effects, making content development a breeze. This feature is only available in Captivate Broadcast.
Topics Included:
- Importing Your After Effects Design into Captivate
- Resolving AE Connection Issues
-
Manually starting the New Blue Harmonizer Panel
- Clearing Cache in After Effects
-
- Utilizing the Transform tab
- Utilizing the Show All Variables Toggle
- Update Mogrt properties in the Live Data tab
Note: After Effects will operate as a background application but an interface will open. However, no edits can be done within After Effects in live time with Captivate open on either system type. After Effects is merely running in the background to help facilitate the function of your design.
Importing Your After Effects Design into Captivate
We have streamlined your workflow to import both .aep or .mogrt files directly into Captivate. Utilize the Live Data and Transform tab to make any adjustments needed to fit your broadcast. We have also included an update Live toggle to highlight only your data that will be available to edit on-air.
Note: By default, your Composition’s resolution will be scaled to your Captivate project settings. The frame-rate will be modified to match the output settings.
Important: Before importing, please save your AEP and MOGRT compositions in the same folder as your Captivate project if you would like to re-open the project without having to re-import the files again.
- Open your project in Captivate.
- Go to File > Import > After Effects
or Right-click in the Layers Panel > Import > After Effects.
- If your After Effects project contains multiple compositions, you will be prompted to select which composition you wish to import as an AE graphics layer.
Note: Since your mogrt may have nested comps within it, you will need to choose the specific composition associated as well.
Resolving AE Connection Issues
To support AE workflows, we orchestrate a running instance of After Effects on your machine.
We establish a communication channel with an Extension Panel – New Blue Harmonizer –running inside of After Effects to make this happen.
If we can’t make a connection immediately, the following dialog will appear. It makes several attempts to make a connection before giving up.
Troubleshooting Tip: If After Effects opens, but your project does not load automatically, and/or you receive error messages such as these:
or
If we can't connect to AE, it's likely because the extension panel isn't running.
Manually starting the New Blue Harmonizer Panel
We tell After Effects to automatically load our extension. Unfortunately, if it wasn’t previously docked it will unload after it loads. This bug was introduced by a recent version of After Effects
To fix the connectivity issue:
- Manually open the project in After Effects
- Select Window > Extensions > New Blue Harmonizer
- Dock the floating New Blue Harmonizer window to AE’s main window or minimize the panel, but please make sure it stays open to ensure successful import and operation within Captivate 5.
Your After Effects design will now load as a graphics layer and begin rendering in After Effects for playback in Captivate. Please refer to the Live Data panel to directly modify properties of the layer. You can also connect a data controller to the imported layer by selecting it in the Layers list and clicking “Select a data source.” Then you may link data to any supported variables in the graphic by clicking “Link Data” in the Preview panel.
Learn more about connecting data controllers to your designs here.
Clearing Cache in After Effects
Important: If you run into any issues with your graphic fully rendering upon import, you may want to clear your cache in After Effects.
- Close Captivate and open the After Effects interface.
- Navigate to Edit > Preferences > Media and Disk Cache
- Choose Empty Disk Cache for optimal results. You also have the option of increasing your Cache size.
Utilizing the Transform tab
In the Layer Properties panel, there is a Transform tab to provide precise control of your After Effects layers. There are four primary controls in the tab:
Note: Layer transformations can also be performed directly in the Preview panel.
- Position Offset (px)
Specify the distance (in pixels) that the layer will be offset from its default position. The first value represents the X (horizontal) axis and the second is Y (vertical). - Scale %
Control the scale of the layer when “Scale to fit project dimensions” is disabled. The height and width values are linked by default, but they can be unlinked by clicking the link icon. - After Effects Layout - Scale to fit project dimensions
This setting is enabled by default and will automatically scale your after effects compositions to fit Captivate’s resolution settings. It can be disabled if you wish to scale or position from the native Composition resolution. This can be useful if a composition was created at a lower resolution for a small element such as a logo or bug. - Reset Values
Return all values to their defaults.
Utilizing the Show All Variables Toggle
We have added an option to show all of your editable properties during broadcast at the top of the Live Data panel. Properties available to edit live include:
- Text
- Image
- Color
- Checkbox Control
Update Mogrt properties in the Live Data Tab
The Live data tab allows you to edit variables to a single instance of the graphic layer. Mogrt properties that will be available to edit live are listed above in the Utilizing the Show all Variables Toggle section. Any edits done in this tab will continuously update your graphic layer as variables are customized.
- Select the After Effects graphic layer you wish to update from the Layer's workspace.
- The Layer Properties panel will open, which includes the Live data tab and all variables that are available for the selected graphic layer.
- Toggle the lock next to the property to enable editing when live. This will also allow you to Send to Cache to save in your cache list for managing on-air.
Note: Only Dynamic Variables can be sent to the cache list. When the lock is toggled open, then your property is now rendered as static and cannot be edited live or sent to the cache list.
4. Whenever you update a property with new information, the graphic layer starts rendering and displays the change when it is fully rendered.
5. You can change as many of the dynamic properties on that graphic as desired and send to the Cache List to be played live without re-rendering.
Tip: Any changes made to your properties while on-air default to Auto-update as indicated by the button in the top right of the panel. You can change that to manual update by pressing the button. Then you have the option of manually updating with or without a transition.
For more information on Operating your Cache List, please navigate here.
Important: If you utilized our pre-cache workflow by saving a Project + cache within Captivate and are now broadcasting on a machine that does not have After Effects installed on it, then the properties will not be available to update Live.