Setting Your Templater Preferences

Templater offers a wide range of configurable settings. This lets you adapt it to your workflow and make your work easier. You'll find most of these settings in the Preferences dialog.

NOTE  If you don't see the Templater pane, click Window and select Templater 3.jsxbin. Would you like to dock the pane so it opens with every AE project? Just click-and-hold the word Templater in the upper left corner of the pane, then drag-and-drop the pane to where you want it in your workspace.

The images shown in this article illustrate the Preferences dialog in Templater 3.4 and later. If you have an earlier version, the dialog looks different, but the options are the same except where specifically noted.

The Preferences dialog can also show you:

  • Templater End User License Agreement, version, and build number. To access, click the Information icon (i) at the bottom of the Preferences dialog.
  • Online help for Templater. To access, click the Help icon (?) at the bottom of the Preferences dialog.
  • Details about your Templater licensing. To access, click Licensing in the Preferences dialog. From here, you can activate, deactivate, or reactivate a license; list activations and see information for a license key; or purchase a license (for example, if you're using a free trial version).

Configure Data Source Settings

The first time you open Preferences, it defaults to the Data Source settings. In version 3.4 or later, Templater remembers the category you last configured and opens that as the default the next time you use Preferences during your work session.

  1. Click Preferences>Data Source.

  2. Leave the first checkbox enabled if your data source is a Tab delimited file exported from Excel or Numbers. If your data source is QUE, local/remote JSON file, or a local TSV file exported from Google Sheets, disable the checkbox.

  3. Enable the second checkbox if you want to Import Templater data as JSON footage. This causes the current job's JSON to be imported as a footage layer so the data can be used in expressions. This is an experimental feature and should only be enabled by experienced users.

  4. If you use a remote JSON feed as your data source, click Remote JSON Configuration. Then enter the Username and Password to authenticate to the feed with a "Basic Authentication" scheme. You can also enter Optional Request Headers if you want to. Click OK.
  5. If you use DataclayQUE as your data source, click QUE Configuration and complete the fields to add your machine as a QUE satellite. This button is disabled if you are not logged in to QUE.

    NOTE  QUE requires Templater 3.0 or later.

  6. When you're finished configuring data source settings, click OK.

Configure Spot Checks Settings

NOTE  The spot checking feature requires Templater Pro or Bot edition, version 3.0 or later.

Spot checks help you ensure quality control before batch processing. This feature lets you generate still images for each video to make sure your data looks the way you want it to.

  1. Click Preferences>Spot Checks.

  2. Click Load Settings and Module Templates. This populates the drop-down menus with all render settings and output module templates.

  3. Select a template from the Render Settings drop-down.

    Render settings help you make your output workflow more efficient. You can use them in combination with output modules to quickly output drafts and standardize final output formats across multiple machines. After Effects comes with predefined render settings templates, but a Dataclay-specific set is also available. To load this set:

    1. Open After Effects and launch the Templater panel.

    2. In the AE main menu, click Edit > Templates > Render Settings....

    3. In the lower left corner of the Render Settings Templates dialog, click Load...

    4. Navigate to and select the dataclay-render-settings.ars file, then click Open. This file can be found:

      • Windows OS: At C:\Users\Public\Documents\Dataclay
      • macOS: At /Applications/Dataclay

      NOTE  If an error message appears, you can safely ignore it and click OK.

    This table explains each of the Dataclay render settings templates.

    Render Settings Template Output Duration Render Quality Notes
    dclay-best-comp Duration of target comp Best Quality Highest quality level and best choice when you want production quality. If using any Templater Time Sculpting features, this template ensures the entire duration of the composition is rendered regardless of how Templater adjusts the target comp's length.
    dclay-best-workarea Duration of target comp's work area Best Quality Best choice when pre-flighting your AE project for batch processes or you otherwise want to render only a portion of the target composition's timeline at the highest quality level. You control how many frames should render with each re-version. Output frames appear only within the target composition's work area.
    dclay-draft-comp Duration of target comp Draft Quality Good choice when render speed is the most important consideration. Output quality is very low, but you can move quickly through many render jobs to test your output. The entire duration of the target composition is rendered.
    dclay-draft-workarea Duration of target comp's work area Draft Quality Another good choice when render speed is important. Output quality is very low, and frames are only rendered within the target composition's work area.

  4. Select a module from the Output Module drop-down.

    Output modules help you make your output workflow more efficient. You can use them in combination with render settings templates to quickly output drafts and standardize final output formats across multiple machines. After Effects comes with predefined output module templates, but a Dataclay-specific set is also available. To load this set:

    1. Open After Effects and launch the Templater panel.

    2. In the AE main menu, click Edit > Templates > Output Module....

    3. In the lower left corner of the Output Module Templates dialog, click Load...

    4. Navigate to and select the dataclay-output-modules.aom file, then click Open. This file can be found:

      • Windows OS: At C:\Users\Public\Documents\Dataclay
      • macOS: At /Applications/Dataclay

      NOTE  If an error message appears, you can safely ignore it and click OK.

    This table explains each of the Dataclay output module templates.

    Output Module Template Container Video Codec Outputs Alpha Channel Notes
    dclay-AVILOSSLESS Audio Video Interleaved (.AVI) None No Windows only. Quick render with large file size.
    dclay-AVILOSSLESS_Alpha Audio Video Interleaved (.AVI) None Yes Windows only. Quick render with a transparency channel and large file size.
    dclay-PNGSEQ Portable Network Graphics (.PNG) None No Windows or Mac. Quick render to sequence of still images. Set your target composition's work area to single frame duration to render a still image for each video. Useful for quality control of batch processing. Recommended for spot checks.
    dclay-PNGSEQ_Alpha Portable Network Graphics (.PNG) None Yes Windows or Mac. Quick render to sequence of still images with a transparency channel. Set your target composition's work area to single frame duration to render a still image for each video. Useful for quality control of batch processing. Recommended for spot checks.
    dclay-QT422HQ QuickTime (.MOV) Apple ProRes 422 HQ No macOS only. Apple ProRes offers excellent compression and superb quality. Output files are a reasonable size. After Effects renders them more slowly compared to uncompressed formats because it must calculate compression for each frame.
    dclay-QTANIM QuickTime (.MOV) Animation No macOS only. Useful when your target composition is mostly illustrative graphics rather than live action footage. Offers decent compression with acceptable file sizes.
    dclay-QTANIM_Alpha QuickTime (.MOV) Animation Yes macOS only. Useful when your target composition is mostly illustrative graphics and you need a transparency channel in final output. Offers decent compression with acceptable file sizes.
    dclay-QTLOSSLESS QuickTime (.MOV) None No macOS only. Quick render times since output files are not compressed. Very large file sizes.
  5. In the Sample ___ frames from comps without timeline markers field, enter the number of spot checks you want Templater to render when no markers exist in a target composition. This provides a back-up in case spot checking fails. You can also use this setting instead of creating your own spot check markers. However, Templater spreads the sampling across the entire composition and you may or may not see the information you need.
  6. Select either or both checkboxes for Create when  __Rendering  __Replicating. This setting is optional.
  7. When you're finished configuring render settings, click OK.

Configure Previewing Settings

These settings let you standardize the way you preview your versioned compositions.

  1. Click Preferences>Previewing.
  2. Enter a numeric value for Wait at least ___ seconds between preview cycles.
  3. To Clear cache on preview, enable the checkbox.

  4. To Bring target comp into focus viewer when previewing Time Sculpting, enable the checkbox.

    NOTE  This setting is available in Templater 3.4 or later. Time Sculpting requires Templater 3.0 or later. When you enable this setting, Templater brings the specified target composition into focus each time you click any of the transport preview buttons in the main Templater panel. It also forces the composition timeline to zoom out so you can see the entire duration timeline. Do not enable the checkbox if you don't have, or aren't using, Time Sculpting.

  5. Click OK.

Configure Replication Settings

Replication settings let you standardize the way Templater creates versioned replica compositions from your target comp and your data. They also help you automate how these replicates are handled after their creation.

  1. Click Preferences>Replication.
  2. To Fix layer expressions upon replication, enable the checkbox. If your projects are large, this may slow the replication process.
  3. To automatically Add replicates to Render Queue, enable the checkbox. This can save time if you use After Effects to render video.
  4. To Send replicates to Adobe Media Encoder, enable the checkbox. Templater will save each replicate as a separate AEP file in the Templater output folder, with each project file/Autograf structured for automatic queuing by AME. You must set the Templater output directory as a watch folder in Media Encoder to use this feature.

  5. To Remove Templater settings from replica's layers, enable the checkbox. If you are using Adobe Media Encoder to render, do not enable this setting.

    WARNING  This setting slows the replication process and is unfortunately prone to bugs and After Effects crashes. It also adds all replicates to the File > Open Recents list in After Effects. Due to these and other factors, this is an experimental setting and those who use it are doing so at their own risk.

Configure Footage Settings

  1. Click Preferences>Footage.
  2. To Allow unique downloads for cloud-based assets, select the checkbox. Templater will download a fresh file every time rather than using cached footage for files previously downloaded It will also add a unique prefix to the filename of each downloaded footage asset. This prevents files from being overwritten if they have the same original names.
  3. To Consider empty cells or null values as faulty, select the checkbox. Templater will then take the action you specify in the next steps.

  4. From the drop-down, select what you want to happen if Templater cannot find or import referenced footage.

    NOTE  Templater 2.9.5 and later includes default branded placeholder files. These are added to your local machine during installation. In addition, the default footage handling option is set as use my branded placeholder. The default location for these files is /Applications/Dataclay on macOS and C:\Users\Public\Documents\Dataclay on Windows.

  5. To specify a custom Placeholder for missing visual footage, enter a file path. You can also click the ellipsis (...) button to navigate to the placeholder file.
  6. To specify a custom Placeholder for missing audio footage, enter a file path. You can also click the ellipsis (...) button to navigate to the placeholder file.

Configure Text Settings

This setting lets you specify a default font to be used in text elements for your target compositions.

  1. Click Preferences>Text.
  2. Enter the name of the font you want to specify and then click Search.
  3. From the list of installed fonts with that name, click the one you want to use. The list shows the PostScript names of the fonts.
  4. Verify that your chosen PostScript font name appears in the Current Default field.
  5. Click OK.

Configure Default Target Composition Settings

You can specify a default target comp for batch processes here. You can also set target comps in your data source or in your AE project.

You can specify the target composition in three ways. Each way is useful for a particular scenario, but each has caveats you'll also need to consider.

  • From data source: If you need to switch between target compositions while versioning your project, use a target column or property in your data source. This method of selecting a target composition overrides all other methods. In addition, you must set one of the other two methods as a backup. We recommend using "from project" for this purpose.
  • From Preferences: If you always version a single composition, select the target in the Templater Preferences dialog. This is also a back-up if you forget to set the target comp elsewhere. However, you should not use this method if you switch between AEP files that may or may not contain the target name. If the target set in Preferences doesn't exist in an AE project file, you'll get an error.
  • From project: If you want to version a single composition, but don't want to go to Templater Preferences, specify one target within the AE project panel. This method saves the target composition to the project file. When you reopen that project file, the target composition will still be set. This method overrides a target composition specified in Templater Preferences if you wrap the comp name in double braces {{comp name}} or double brackets [[comp name]]. It's a good choice if you have different projects with different data sources. But if you have more than one comp in the project that uses the double braces/brackets notation, unexpected behavior will result.
  1. Click Preferences>Target Composition.
  2. From the list of available compositions, select the one you want.
  3. Click OK.

Configure Bot Settings

NOTE  These settings only apply if you have the Templater Bot edition. The Bot automatically performs the actions you specify when new, ready data is found in your data source.

  1. In the Templater panel, click Preferences > Bot.
  2. Select whether you want the Bot to automatically Render, Replicate, or Spot Check by selecting one or more of the checkboxes.
  3. If you plan to use more than one Bot with the same data source, enter a Bot Name for this Bot. If you only use one Bot per data source, you don't have to name your Bot or have a bot column in your data source.>
  4. Enter a numeric value in the Check every ___ minutes for new data in Google Sheets or Check every ___ minutes for new data in JSON sources field. The default value is 0.5 minutes (30 seconds).

    NOTE  The minimum value for frequency of polling Google Sheets is 0.3 minutes (18 seconds) while the minimum value for frequency of polling JSON sources is 0.2 minutes (12 seconds). Setting the value too low may cause After Effects to behave unexpectedly.

  5. Enter a numeric value in the Allow up to ___ rows to be queued at one time field. This limits the number of rows or JSON objects the Bot will queue and process at any given time. The default and maximum allowed value is 20.

    TIP This setting can help you efficiently process extremely large data sources. For example, you can set the render-status value for 10,000 spreadsheet rows or JSON objects to ready. Then set the value in this field to 20 to have the Bot process them in batches. This reduces the memory needed by Templater to process all 10,000.

  6. If you want to register shell scripts you've written based on Templater events, click Setup Shell Commands and then:

    NOTE  The following image shows the dialog from Templater 3.4.0 and later. If you have an earlier version, your dialog will look different.

    1. Select a Templater event group to show available events associated with that group.

      NOTE  The Footage Processing and Footage Download event groups are only available in Templater 3.4 or later. Earlier versions have the Footage Retrieval event group instead.

    2. Select a checkbox to specify whether your script should run Before or After the chosen event. If the checkbox is cleared, the script is disabled. Once disabled, a script written directly in this dialog cannot be edited (see the next step).
    3. In the text box below the checkbox, do one of the following:
      • For a script executable by the operating system, such as a macOS Bash script or a Windows Batch script, enter the absolute path to the script. To have Templater enter the path for you, click Choose script… and navigate to the script location, then click OK.
      • For a script requiring an interpreter such as NodeJS, Python, or PHP, enter the full command syntax. The following example shows the syntax for a script created in NodeJS.
        node /Users/home/event-scripts/my-node-script.js

        TIP You may need to provide the full path to the code interpreter if your code doesn't execute correctly.

    4. If arguments must be passed to the script, do one or more of the following:

      • Explicit values: Enter each value, separated by spaces, after the path or command within the event field. The following example shows how you would pass Integer 512 and String 08-24-2018 values as arguments to the registered Windows Batch script timestamp.bat.
        C:\Users\dev\event-scripts\timestamp.bat 512 '08-24-2018'
      • Pre-existing information: Select an option from the Append drop-down, then click Append. Templater will append the selected argument macro to the contents within the event field. The following example illustrates appending three arguments to the registered NodeJS script update-job.js: (1) $aep — the path to the currently processed After Effects project file, (2) $data_uri — the full URL or absolute path to the connected data source, and (3) $now — a timestamp derived from the host machine's internal clock.
        node C:\Users\dev\event-scripts\update-job.js $aep $data_uri $now
      • Values from the connected data source: Prefix column names or property keys with the $ symbol to create custom macros. Then append those macros to the script path or full command within the event field. The following example illustrates passing the values of the album-name and release-date columns from a connected data source to the registered Windows Batch script setup-folder.bat.
        C:\Users\dev\event-scripts\setup-folder.bat $album-name $release-date
    5. Select the Asynchronous checkbox if the script must execute as a detached process.

      TIP By default, Templater executes registered commands and scripts synchronously. This causes After Effects to wait until the script finishes executing.

    6. To add shell scripts for other Templater events, repeat steps 2 through 6.
    7. When you are finished adding script information, click OK to register the scripts.

    WARNING  If Templater sends compositions to Adobe Media Encoder (AME) for rendering, shell scripts are executed after the target composition is versioned in AE, not after AME finishes rendering.

  7. If you want to register ExtendScripts you've written based on Templater events, click Setup ExtendScripts and then:

    NOTE  The following image shows the dialog from Templater 3.4. If you have an earlier version, your dialog will look different.

    1. Select a Templater event group to show available events associated with that group.

      NOTE  The Footage Processing and Footage Download event groups are only available in Templater 3.4 or later. Earlier versions show the Footage Retrieval event group instead.

    2. Enable a checkbox to specify whether your ExtendScript should run Before or After the chosen event. If the checkbox is cleared, the ExtendScript is disabled.
    3. In the text field below the checkbox, enter the absolute path to the ExtendScript. To have Templater enter the path for you, click Choose script… and navigate to the ExtendScript location, then click OK.
    4. To add ExtendScripts for other Templater events, repeat steps 2 through 4.
    5. When you are finished adding script information, click OK to register the ExtendScripts.
  8. Optionally, select the checkbox to Prevent event script execution on Preview. By default, Templater executes registered event scripts each time a Preview is performed.

Configure Advanced Settings

These settings help you manage application logging and messaging. They also let you specify whether to use some of the advanced Templater features.

  1. In the Templater panel, click Preferences > Advanced.
  2. Clear the checkbox if you don't want to Suppress all After Effects notices, warnings, and error dialogs. The default setting is selected, which minimizes these disruptions. However, if you need to troubleshoot, you should clear the checkbox.
  3. Select the checkbox if you want to Turn off all logging for Templater. This can speed up performance, but not having logs makes troubleshooting very difficult.

  4. Select the checkbox if you want to Purge all memory caches after each job. If you find After Effects consumes too much memory during batch processing, enabling this setting can help.

    NOTE  As of Templater 3.4, this setting no longer empties the disk cache. Adobe requires confirmation for this action that, with After Effects 24.3, can no longer be bypassed by automated processes. If you use any version of Templater Bot and After Effects 24.3, you should optimize your AE preferences to minimize disruption to your automated workflow.

  5. Select the checkbox if you want to Remove all unused footage after each job. Enabling this setting can keep the output folder size from becoming unmanageable when your data includes large or numerous footage assets.
  6. Clear the Layout Engine checkbox if you plan to use an expressions-based layout engine instead. This setting is only available if you have Templater 3.0 or later.
  7. Clear the checkbox if you do not plan to use the Time Sculpting feature. Time Sculpting was introduced in Templater 2.5, and this setting is only available in Templater 3.0 or later.

  8. For Set log location, enter the file path to the folder where you want Templater to save its templater.log and templater.err files. To have Templater enter the path for you, click the ellipsis (...) button and navigate to the path. To open the current log file, click the link button to the left of this setting.