v3.x Dataclay Templater Bot
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Templater Bot is an enterprise solution for custom video on demand.
Templater is an Adobe® After Effects® plugin that simplifies and accelerates the process of creating customized videos. It empowers you to quickly and easily produce a large volume of beautiful videos that will resonate with your audience.
Templater Bot extends Templater Rig by offering full server automation, allowing you to build applications that version, render, and distribute custom video on demand. 1, 3, 6, or 12-month subscription licenses are available.
What is Templater Bot?
Templater Bot is an enterprise solution for custom video on demand. It works as an automated system. Use it to periodically check for incoming data, pull new data in, and render the video as a background process. Or use the command-line interface to push data in to create new renders. Once your AE project is prepared, use The Bot or the command-line interface to customize and render it without operating the After Effects user interface. Developers can create front-end applications, such as web or mobile apps, that feed data into Templater’s data source, offering a collaborative, custom video content creation solution.
Templater Editions
Templater is available in three separate editions—Rig, Pro, and Bot.
Subscription Types
Subscribe to Templater Bot with a 1, 3, 6, or 12-month license in an up-front transaction. Templater Rig is included with all Bot subscriptions.
Important Requirements
Templater Bot activation and license verification require your system to be online and connected to the Internet.
Contact us (sales@toolfarm.com) if your organization requires offline activation or floating license server support.
Why Use Templater Bot?
Sometimes you need to fully automate After Effects to handle the versioning and rendering of a master composition and then automatically distribute the output. Use Templater Bot to develop applications that can harness the power of After Effects. Reasons you might need to use Templater Bot in your organization:
- You need an efficient way to create anywhere from 15 to 15,000+ unique videos based on a data source.
- You want to automatically create a video based on web form input and run a script to upload it to a server.
- In addition, you want to integrate Templater into an existing automated production pipeline.
- You need to automatically run a script after every rendering job or after all render jobs are complete.
A single license of any Templater edition allows you to install and/or activate that edition on a single machine for one user. Before purchasing, you should verify that Templater will help your workflow by using it in trial mode. The trial lets you explore Templater Rig, Templater Pro, and Templater Bot features with a watermark. After 30 days, all functions cease to work without a purchased license. For an additional fee, a floating license version is also available which works in conjunction with a Linux-based license server. To inquire about a floating license version and server, please contact us at sales@toolfarm.com.
Subscription Pricing
Templater is a professional-grade application—the kind that eliminates the worst of the tedium in post-production. Taking user feedback from the original release, we re-engineered our product line-up to accommodate users in any environment, from independent producers needing a single copy of Templater Rig to those working in studios and organizations running Templater Bot on dedicated server farms. What’s more, this new model provides better sustainability for continued support and development.
Compare Edition Features
See the table below to note which features ship with Templater Bot.
Templater Comparison Chart
Key Feature | Rig | Pro | Pro |
---|---|---|---|
Use a JSON-formatted text file as a data source | |||
Use a Google Sheets document as a data source | |||
Use a Tab-separated value file as a data source | |||
Incorporate data from any web API into a data source | |||
Easily swap out footage sources | |||
Use cloud-based footage references in data source | |||
Apply layout rules to layers | |||
Apply timeline rules to layers | |||
Store batch asset reference presets in project files | |||
Preview compositions with data | |||
Log Templater activity to file | |||
Batch replicate compositions | |||
Batch render compositions | |||
Batch render with Adobe Media Encoder | |||
Custom output naming | |||
Switch AE projects within the data source | |||
Run shell scripts while Templater processes | |||
Command-line interface control | |||
Version AE projects as a background process | |||
Process extremely large data sources |
Description
Automation with the Bot
Command Line Interface
Batch Rendering
Batch Replication
Target Compositions
Custom Naming
Project File Switching
System Requirements
After Effects 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, CC 2019, CC 2018, CC 2017, CC 2015.3, CC 2015, CC 2014, CC, CS6, CS5.5, CS5
Change Log
3.3.3 – Dec 19, 2023
3.3.2 – Nov 13, 2023
3.3.1 – Sep 27, 2023
– Support for share links for remote footage
3.3.0 – Aug 18, 2023
– Support for footage URLs that include parameters
– Support for using Templater with an empty data source
– Improved the use of markers in spot checking
– Enhanced logging to include actions performed when a specific project file is not open
– Added a button in Templater Preferences to open the log location in the macOS Finder or Windows Explorer
– Grouped all sorting options in their own section in the Job Selector Setup dialog
– Fixed an issue where spot checking multiple frames sometimes produced duplicate still images
– Fixed an issue where range validation was being incorrectly applied when the data source was QUE
– Fixed an issue with using the additional_pages option in the command line interface
– Updated EULA for macOS and Windows versions to reflect change of address for Dataclay, LLC
3.2.0 – Mar 7, 2023
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
It’s now easier than ever to identify when errors occur
during Templater’s operation and what specifically causes
those errors:
+ In Templater’s connected data source, Bot will label
individual rows / jobs with an error when an output issue
occurs. Any issue locating or importing media assets causes
Templater to assign an error value to the `render-status`
property.
+ For each processed row / job, Templater logs details about
missing or corrupt media references and their corresponding
composition layers to the `templater.err` file.
+ Errors and info emitted by After Effects, regardless of
severity level, to the `templater.err` file.
+ Detailed logs are attached to each processed job in QUE for
enhanced observability and transparency.
BUG FIXES
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
+ When using the command line interface to render QUE jobs,
Templater would only process the initial page of returned
results when using the `job_filter.additional_pages`
property. Templater now processes all pages in a returned
query from QUE when using the CLI.
+ Fixed failed installation error on macOS Ventura systems
+ Fixed an issue with registering QUE Satellites on
non-English Windows installations
3.1.1 – Oct 20, 2022
3.1.0 – Sep 28, 2022
New Features & Improvements in Templater 3.1.0
CRITICAL UPDATES!
– To ensure continued compliance with Google data authorization requirements, we simplified Templater’s authorization flows for Google Sheets data sources. Users with Google Sheets data sources must update to Templater 3.1.0 by October 3, 2022. Without this update, Google may block Templater from accessing Google Sheets data sources.
– Updated and simplified the authorization flow for QUE.
– Improved remote footage retrieval on Windows.
– Added support for .obj, .c4d, .heic, and .heif file types for dynamic footage layers.
– BUG FIX — The Wand tool now works without a connected data source.
– BUG FIX — Enabling Bot when a TSV file is connected will now display an error message.
3.0.0 – Apr 5, 2022
- NEW FEATURE — Dataclay QUE Integration
We are happy to introduce QUE! Moving forward QUE will be the primary and optimal data source for Templater. QUE exposes a REST API to leverage the full capabilities of Templater to produce dynamic videos. QUE frees you from the scalability constraints of traditional tabular data sources, such as spreadsheets, which become unwieldy as the volume and complexity of your video production needs grow. QUE supports
security measures such as data-at-rest encryption as well as data masking for hiding personal and demographic data.
An overview of QUE can be found at https://dataclay.com/que
Read and study QUE’s API endpoints here: https://que-api-docs.dataclay.com
Learn more about using QUE with Templater here: http://dcly.io/que-tutorials - NEW FEATURE — Spot Checking
Spot checking lets you export still images or short video clips of specific frames from target compositions to help assure the quality of merged data in a batch process. Use composition timeline markers to set which frames you want exported, otherwise Templater exports an evenly distributed number of frames from the target composition. Spot checking can be performed exclusively or together with render or replication tasks, and export data can be sent to event scripts. Use new properties in `templater-options.json` to invoke spot checking via the Command Line Interface. - NEW FEATURE — Use Expressions-based Layout Engines
Users now have the option to turn off Templater’s auto-layout engine and Time Sculpting features. Doing this allows users to rely on layer expressions or other custom plugins to achieve dynamic layouts as Templater processes your data. For example, if Templater’s internal layout
engine does not suit your needs, you can disable the Layout Engine in Templater’s preferences and author your dynamic layout using tools such as:
mamoworld’s Pins & Boxes
or
Zack Lovatt’s Flex - IMPROVEMENT — Optimized for AE’s Multi-Frame Rendering
The Templater Settings effect is now “thread safe” making it optimized for AE’s Multi-Frame Rendering (MFR) feature released in 2022. Users should no longer see a yellow warning icon in the Effects Controls for Templater Settings. - IMPROVEMENT — Support for Google Shared Drives
Users can now store Google Sheets in a Shared Drive, and Templater will be able to access those documents. Users no longer need to explicitly share the individual Sheets with Shared Drive members. - IMPROVEMENTS — Miscellaneous
License activation has improved messaging when it encounters an issue. Offline activation is now accomplished using the Templater panel.You can now install Templater directly into After Effects Beta application folders on both macOS and Windows.On Windows, utility executables are now signed with a digital certificate so that they pass anti-virus checks.The {{off}} flag now mutes audio in addition to visually hiding a layer.Added support for references to JPEG File Interchange Format (.JFIF) assets and Google WebP (.webp) formatted file assets.Improved error messaging for missing output destination, missing footage root, and footage importing.
2.9.7 – Oct 27, 2021
2.9.5 – Mar 5, 2020
- Critical upgrade to support new Google Sheets api. Any user who wishes to use Google Sheets as a data source they MUST upgrade to 2.9.5 no later than April 9, 2020.
- A live data toggle preview setting — You can enable the live data toggle to request live data when generating previews, or you can disable it to use cached data and speed up the previewing process.
- Default visual and audio placeholders — Templater points to these defaults within the preferences if you don’t specify a placeholder.
- Search functionality for locating a Google Sheets data source — It’s now easier to specify a linked worksheet.
- Status message and logging improvements — A variety of changes, tweaks, and additions to make status messages clearer and more accurate.
- Bug Fix: CLI checking JSON freed with headers — An issue has been resolved when passing headers values to access a JSON endpoint via the CLI.
- Bug Fix: Retrieve the correct row within range during preview — An issue has been resolved when iterating through previews and the Start and Finish range values change.
2.9.1 – Oct 15, 2019
- Installer is macOS 10.15 Catalina compatible
- Fixed bug when requesting license from server.
2.9.0 – Feb 25, 2019
- Complete refresh of Templater’s main panel interface
- Added transport user interface for intuitive previewing
- Open data, footage, and output locations from main panel
- New preference for handling empty or null footage references
- Improved messaging when enabling Bot from command line
- Bug Fix – specifying JSON polling interval via CLI now works
- Bug Fix – Standard license builds no longer hang on startup
Tutorials
Dataclay Templater Rig, Pro & Bot Tutorials #gettingstarted
Watch these tutorials to learn how to use Templater 2 Rig, Pro and Bot to easily customize your After Effects videos with an elegant workflow.
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