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Exporter Controls
Here is a quick description of the parameters. Note that the names may change slightly, or additional parameters may be added.
Export Action. Dropdown. The script can be written to create a new project, to add (a new comp) to an existing After Effects project, to add (new layers) to the selected or first existing After Effects comp in the current project, or to update the previous export. See the Updating After Effects Projects section. There are two versions of each type, Run Now and Don't Run. Both produce the same javascript; the Run Now version causes After Effects to run it immediately.
For this AE (or later). Dropdown. Select the version of After Effects that you are using; or want to export for; select the most recent version before yours if yours isn’t
listed (the list includes only versions that made significant changes). For 3-D Mesh support, you must select Beta after 2024.1 and not enable C4D.
Timeline setup. Dropdown. Three choices controlling how the shot is positioned in time on the After Effects timeline. One or the other option may be more useful for your needs. Active part: the active portion of the shot is positioned at the Starting Frame#. Entire shot: the entire shot will be set up to start at the Starting Frame#. In both of these options, the After Effects "work area" controls are set up to indicate the tracked portion of the shot. Match frames: the shot is repositioned so that each frame number has the position dictated by its file name (number).
Match frames is the default; when applied to a movie it is equivalent to the Entire setting. The After Effects composition may be substantially longer than the shot itself, depending on the Starting frame# or frame numbers being matched. If you anticipate editorial changes, we recommend exporting using either Match frames or the "Entire Shot" option with a starting frame # of 100-1000 frames, to leave room for frames to be added at the beginning. This latter option is useful when the frame numbers are large.
Starting frame#. Number. For the Active part or Entire shot options of Timeline setup, this sets the frame number where the first, or first active, frame will be placed. Note that After Effect’s first frame number will be controlled by the “First frame is 1” preference in the Image Input section, except when it must be overridden to accommodate the exporter settings (ie a movie with Starting frame# = 1).
Display in frame#s. Checkbox. When checked, the After Effects user interface will operate using frame numbers, matching SynthEyes. Unchecked, it operates in seconds, making comparison to SynthEyes more difficult.
Extra Scaling. Dropdown. Multiply all the position numbers in SynthEyes by this value, making the scene larger in After Effects (which measures in pixels)
Force CS centering. Checkbox. Offsets the SynthEyes coordinates so that the SynthEyes origin falls at the center of the After Effects workspace. Although this makes the coordinate values less convenient to work with, it reduces the amount of zooming and middle-panning in the After Effects Top/Left/Front/etc views. It must and will be turned off automatically for 360VR shots.
Include all cameras. Checkbox. Export each camera in the scene in its own composition. If unchecked, only the active camera is exported.
Layer for moving objects. Checkbox. When checked, a 3D layer will be produced for each moving object, and trackers and meshes will be parented to it, as appropriate. When unchecked, no layer will be produced, and those trackers and meshes will be animated frame-by-frame.
Shutter angle, phase(deg). Text (two comma-separated numbers). Controls the composition's shutter angle and phase, separated by a comma. The current After Effects default of 180 corresponds to film. Keeping the shutter opening centered (-90, or -half the angle) prevents relative shifts between the imagery and animation.
Include Trackers. Dropdown. No/All as regular/Planar as such. On No, trackers are not exported at all. Otherwise, a null layer will be produced for each non-planar tracker. When Planar as such is selected, planar trackers will be exported as planar trackers, producing a matching placeholder layer ready to receive imagery
or effects. When All as regular is selected, both regular and planar trackers appear as nulls. Note that generally you should use the Exportable checkbox on the Coordinate System panel to control which trackers are exported, to reduce clutter in After Effects. AE is not particularly efficient at handling hundreds or thousands of trackers.
Max. Exported Trackers. Since having too many tracker layers can slow After Effects, this control allows you to limit the number of exported tracker layers to this value. If the number of exportable trackers is over this limit, enough randomly-selected trackers are set to not-exported to get under the limit. Trackers used for coordinate system setup are always exported , ie if any axis is locked. To re- export some trackers, re-enable their is-exported control, and increase this limit. Setting the limit to zero disables it; no further adjustments to the exportable controls will be made.
Relative Tracker Size. Number. Controls the size of the tracker nulls in After Effects; adjust and repeat as necessary. This is a percentage of the layer size, which is then multiplied by the Extra Scaling setting.
Sort back to front on. Dropdown. None/Start Frame/Middle Frame/End Frame. When set to one of the frames, the tracker layers are stacked in order, from near on top to far at the bottom, as measure on the selected frame. When None is selected, they are stacked in their creation order, ie typically by tracker number.
Layer Type. Dropdown. Null/Solid/Single Place Holder/Many Place Holders/Single Comp/Many Comps/Editable Shape. Controls what type of layer is created in After Effects. The default null is suitable for parenting other things to and as a reference for positioning. You might use a solid to cover tracking marks in the scene; also the solid option allows the (non-animated, non-illumination-based) tracker's color in SynthEyes to be used by After Effects. Or you can have one or many AE Place Holder's created, which can then be filled with images and textures. If a single one is created, it is shared by all trackers, or have one created for each tracker (you may want to use the Exportable control to create them for specific trackers). Similarly, you can have one comp created that is shared by all the trackers, or have a comp created for each tracker; either way you can then fill in the comp. Or, create (animatable) Editable Shapes for each tracker; these shapes have a fill color which will be animated if the tracker illumination curve has been set. This latter capability might be used to hide markers. NOTE: use the Exportable checkbox on the 3D panel to control which trackers are exported. Asking AE to create 100s of layers, placeholders, or comps will bog it down considerably!
Comp/Placeholder Size. Text: Comma-separated horizontal and vertical resolution. When a value is present, it is used as the resolution of each tracker layer, for example 100,50 to create layers 100 pixels by 50 pixels. If the field is blank, then the shot's resolution is used instead. Either way, the final size of the layer, as controlled by the layer's Transform Scaling, is affected by Relative tracker size and Extra Scaling.
Animate opacity. Checkbox. When checked, each tracker layer's opacity is animated on and off based on whether or not the tracker is tracked on that particular frame. That allows solid layers and placeholders to wink off if they become occluded, for
example. It also simplifies the view for auto-tracking setups, but potentially too much(!), because trackers are only visible in AE's 3D viewports while they are visible in the camera view.
Tracker Anchor Point. Dropdown. Selects which corner of the layer will be placed at the exact 3D location of the tracker. AE defaults to the Top Left, but for example if you are adding trees at the tracker location, the bottom center might be a better choice.
Tracker Facing Direction. Dropdown. Controls the forward-facing direction of the layers created for the trackers. Use to make the tracker nulls lie flat or stand up straight, whatever is more convenient. Use Orient to camera or Orient to path to request AE's transform Auto-orient setting. In those cases, the Custom rotations modify the direction relative the camera or path. For "Camera @ start", @ middle, and @end, the trackers all face the camera on the specified frame. If the control is set to Custom, the custom rotation controls below are used.
Custom X,Y,Z Rotation (deg). Text (two comma-separate values). These control the orientation of the tracker null layers within the 3D workspace when the Tracker Facing Direction is set to Custom. The values must be separated by commas.
Untextured Planes. Dropdown. none/solid/placeholder/comp. Textured planes (ie with a filename on the Texture Control Panel) are always exported as footage layers (or a placeholder if the filename doesn't exit). This control determines what happens with untextured planes: they can be exported as a solid layer, as a placeholder that can be later replaced with an image, or as a comp, which can have anything put into it.
Send shadowing. Checkbox. When checked, transmits the Cast Shadows and Catch Shadows checkboxes for cards from SynthEyes to After Effects. If unchecked, After Effects defaults prevail.
Map file type. Choice. Leave at ‘none’ to have the export use the SynthEyes Advanced Lens Distortion Effect (included, see plugin installation section below). For manually-configured image preprocessor shots, or to export without using the plugin, select the file type (extension) used to write image distortion (STMap) files.
Filter Type. Dropdown. Selects the type of filtering used by the SynthEyes Distortion node in CC, which affects the resulting image sharpness or softening. Builtin uses AE's builtin sampling (ie bi-linear), controlled by Draft/Better/Best layer quality settings. The other settings match those on the SynthEyes image preprocessor, offering tradeoffs of improved image quality (sharpness) with a potential for increased noise, ringing, and/or processing time.
Cinema 4D Integration. Dropdown. Select None/Write .fbx/Write .fbx, open C4D/Write
.fbx, open C4D Lite/Write .fbx, open C4D Demo. Selects whether or not a FBX file is written for Cinema 4D, and if so, whether or not C4D is launched to open it—furthermore, which flavor of C4D is launched. See the section on C4D integration for details. When C4D is
Don't overwrite .c4d. Checkbox. When set, an existing C4D (ie one you've manually set up) won't be overwritten, so that you can manually re-import the FBX. The drawback of this option is that when active, it is easy to forget to update your C4D file after exporting, so that you are using a new export JSX with an old non-
matching C4D. When the checkbox is off, the C4D file is always over-written with an empty file, which makes it apparent that you still need to open the FBX and save the updated C4D.
C4D Renderer. Dropdown. Select Standard (Final)/Standard (Draft)/Software/OpenGL. This is used to preconfigure the CINEWARE effect in After Effects; it's especially handy for 360VR scenes where there are six different effects to be adjusted.
Custom AfterFX.exe location. Text. (PC) If you have installed After Effects in a non- standard location, such as a different drive, you should click Browse and find and select the AfterFX.exe file from your installation, so that Run Now modes can find it.
Custom AfterFX version. Text (Mac) The application name to be started by Run Now, such as Adobe After Effects 2024.
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