I have a midi (Mackie compatible) controller (jog wheel, sliders, encoders, display’s), and I want to control Adobe after effects with it.
The way I see it:
[MIDI CONROLLER] <===> [MY PROGRAM] <===> [After effects]
So my program needs to communicate bidirectional with the midi controller and after effects.
My main programming experience is Delphi (pascal language), and would like to develop the program in it. But if this is not possible or another language is more suitable than I’m willing to develop it in another language. I’ve some experience with C, Javascript, Php, Phyton.
The [MIDI CONTROLLER] <===> [MY PROGRAM] communication won’t be a problem, I’ve done this before and there is enough information on the internet.
The problem is communication with After effects. I don’t know where to start and I would really appreciate it if someone could give me some pointers how to handle it. I won’t mind if I need to run a script inside after effects to communicate with my program, but I don’t want the script to talk directly to the midi controller. (In a later stage I want to make the program compatible to other applications as well.)
There are several programming options inside after effects. You have the basic expression scripting, but these only affects the scripted layers (design elements). You also have scripts, and maybe this can communicate with a secondary application outside after effects. And I believe there is some kind of api, but I really don’t know nothing about it. The information and sample’s on the internet is sparse about this topic.
What do I need:
I want to know and control thinks like:
- the current timecode
- the opacity of selected layer
- the rotation of selected layer
- the scale of selected layer
- Preview / slice layer / select layer etc.
And it would be great if I can get some interrupt if one of these changes.
In my search I found a new device that can control these parameters:
https://palettegear.com/
That’s exactly what I want to create, only instead of a closed controller, I want to use universal midi controllers. So it seems possible, I only need to know how they did it.
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