Configuring Templater Options, Preferences, and Tasks
Configure the Templater command line interface (CLI) by editing the JSON-formatted templater-options.json file and saving it to the same directory as the After Effects project file you want to version.
NOTE As of the release of Templater 3.0, there are different templater-options.json examples for Templater 2 and Templater 3 with different sets of properties in our GitHub repository. The sample configuration files are sorted by OS and Templaterversion.
Follow these steps to configure the Templater CLI:
- Create a JSON-formatted text file named templater-options.json.
- Within this JSON file, set specific options for Templater. If you are unfamiliar with JSON format, see json.org to learn how to properly format a JSON object so it can be read by Templater. See Dataclay's GitHub code repository to download a sample options file.
- Ensure you have specified a logging location in the templater-options.json file.
NOTE If you forget to specify a required property key or a property key has an invalid value in your JSON file, Templater will log an error or warning. Some property keys have default values. See Templater CLI Configuration Properties for more information.
NOTE The URL for Google Sheets documents can be found in the Google Sheets Setup panel by clicking the Google Drive icon to the right of the "Data" field in the Templater panel. Search for and select the Sheet and Worksheet that you want to use. Once you've selected an option in the "Worksheet details" section, you will see a "Feed URL" that you can copy. The "Feed URL" will be in the following format: https://sheets.googleapis.com/v4/spreadsheets/{{GSheet document key}}/values/'{{worksheet name}}'
Example JSON Options File (Templater 3)
Format a plain text file according to the JSON below and save it as templater-options.json.
{ "log_location" : "C:\\path\\to\\the\\folder\\for\\your\\logs" , "data_source" : "https://url.to.dataclay/que/campaign or https://url.to.google/sheet or C:\\path\\to\\tabbed\\delimited\\file" , "aep" : "C:\\path\\to\\aep\\for\\versioning.aep" , "source_footage" : "C:\\path\\to\\folder\\containing\\referenced\\footage" , "output_location" : "C:\\path\\to\\folder\\templater\\should\\write\\output" , "render_settings" : "Draft Settings" , "output_module" : "High Quality" , "output_prefix" : "string_prefix_for_output_filenames" , "row_start" : 2 , "row_end" : 7 , "save_on_completion" : false , "quit_on_completion" : true , "quit_on_errors" : [] , "prefs" : { "clear_prev_cache" : false , "default_target" : "name-of-default-comp-to-output" , "tsv_from_excel" : true , "import_data_as_json" : false , "replica_comps_to_queue" : false , "replica_comps_to_ame" : true , "remove_templater_effects" : false , "fix_layer_exp" : true , "missing_footage" : 3 , "placeholder_visual" : "C:\\ProgramData\\Dataclay\\dataclay-visual-placeholder.png" , "placeholder_audio" : "C:\\ProgramData\\Dataclay\\dataclay-audio-placeholder.wav" , "unique_downloads" : false , "empty_is_faulty" : true , "suppress_ae_dialogs" : true , "use_engine_layout" : true , "use_engine_time" : true , "silence_logging" : false , "purge_caches" : false , "purge_footage" : true , "remote_json" : { "username" : "" , "password" : "" , "headers" : { "header1" : "header 1 value" , "header2" : "header 2 value" } } , "spot_checking" : { "spot_samples" : 3 , "on_render" : false , "on_replicate" : false , "render_settings" : "Best Settings" , "output_module" : "Photoshop" } , "que" : { "job_filter" : { "id" : "" , "status" : "" , "properties" : {} , "creation_start" : "" , "creation_end" : "" , "sort_rank" : ["_updatedAt"] , "sort_dir" : "DESC" , "additional_pages" : 0 , "page_number" : 1 , "jobs_per_page" : 5 } , "satellite" : { "org_key" : "" , "all_campaigns" : true , "output_naming" : "override" } } , "bot" : { "name" : "" , "goog_freq" : 0.3 , "json_freq" : 0.3 , "max_queued" : 20 , "action_render" : true , "action_replicate" : false , "action_spot_check" : false , "pre_cmd_data" : "" , "pre_cmd_data_async" : false , "pre_jsx_data" : "" , "pre_cmd_batch" : "" , "pre_cmd_batch_async" : false , "pre_jsx_batch" : "" , "pre_cmd_job" : "" , "pre_cmd_job_async" : false , "pre_jsx_job" : "" , "pre_cmd_update" : "" , "pre_cmd_update_async" : false , "pre_jsx_update" : "" , "pre_cmd_spot" : "" , "pre_cmd_spot_async" : false , "pre_jsx_spot" : "" , "pre_cmd_output" : "" , "pre_cmd_ouput_async" : false , "pre_jsx_output" : "" , "post_cmd_data" : "" , "post_cmd_data_async" : false , "post_jsx_data" : "" , "post_cmd_batch" : "" , "post_cmd_batch_async" : false , "post_jsx_batch" : "" , "post_cmd_job" : "" , "post_cmd_job_async" : false , "post_jsx_job" : "" , "post_cmd_update" : "" , "post_cmd_update_async" : false , "post_jsx_update" : "" , "post_cmd_spot" : "" , "post_cmd_spot_async" : false , "post_jsx_spot" : "" , "post_cmd_output" : "" , "post_cmd_output_async" : false , "post_jsx_output" : "" , "enable_cmd" : "" , "enable_cmd_async" : false , "enable_jsx" : "" , "shutdown_cmd" : "" , "shutdown_cmd_async" : false , "shutdown_jsx" : "" } } , "tasks" : ["render"] }
NOTE File paths require a unique syntax for the templater-options.json file.
- On Windows C:\\enter\\paths\\with\\double\\backslashes
- On MacOS /enter/path/with/forward/slash
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