This course by Mathis Möhl builds upon our intermediate Scripting in After Effects and Advanced Scripting for After Effects, Part 1 courses, focusing on the following three advanced topics:

1) Gulp Build System
2) Collaboration with Git
3) Scripting the Render Queue

Gulp Build System

Gulp will help us to automate many tasks of script development. In the previous course AFX303 we have seen that it makes a lot of sense to develop modular code that is distributed over many source files. But when we deliver the project to a client, he usually want to have a single, self-contained script file that often should also be obfuscated to protect our intellectual property.

Gulp can do all of this an much more fully automatically.

Collaboration with Git

In the course AFX303 you learned already the basics of using the git version control system. Now you learn how to use it when working with several people on the same project in parallel. For this, you learn how to work with different branches, how to deal with merge conflicts and how to synchronize your project with a server that can be accessed by all team members.

Scripting the Render Queue

You learn how to start the After Effects render queue or Adobe Media Encoder directly from a script. We cover all the details of controlling the render settings and output modules. As an example, we write a script that renders different variants of a lower thirds project based on data stored in a spreadsheet file. Similar to a watch folder, the script can even monitor the spreadsheet and as soon as the content of the spreadsheet changes, the script starts rendering the new content fully automatically.

While focusing on those three topics, you will also hone your skills to write clean and modular code. With gulp, for example, we also configure a linter that permanently checks your code quality in the background. And in our scripting code for the render queue, for example, we exercise how to minimize redundancy in the code by using functions as arguments of other functions.

For a full listing of all nine classes, check out the course overview page.