After Effects Scripting Resources

Scripts are a very useful addition to After Effects, and can really open up some possibilities and avenues that you never thought of. Some scripts help do little tasks and save a minute of your time, and some can be used as dockable palettes to enhance other functions, such as unlocking the possibilities of Mocha and the other motion trackers. Hounding the interwebs every single day, I have found a bunch of websites that provide scripts, as well as tutorials on how to use them effectively.

AEScripts.com

Lloyd Alvarez is the Editor over at AEtuts+, as well as a very well known script developer from his awesome scripts such as the BG Renderer which lets you work while your projects render in the background, similar to GridIron Nucleo without the pretty window that pops up. He develops dockable scripts as well as quick little timesavers, and they really are all worth downloading and sticking them in your Scripts folder, you never know when you are going to need them. AEScripts.com is going to be undergoing a massive redesign so stay tunes for not only more scripts but a sweet new site to host them all at.

AEnhancers

Seems like all the normal members of the scripting gang hang out here on the AEnhancers to beta test, give/receive input, and search for ideas on what to develop next. This is like a central hub for scripting in AE, and if you are looking for a specific script ask the question, and you will be sure to get an answer, or get something created for you. This is more of a forum type of website, and that actually might be the reason why it is such a popular resource, because there is such a sense of community among its members.

NABScripts

Charles Bordenave is NAB of NABScripts. He is a freelancing AE developer, who creates tools to help streamline workflow for certain projects, when they come about. In his endeavors he started to provide tutorials and downloads of popular scripts useful to those in the After Effects community. Even though the tutorials and the majority of the website is presented in french, the downloads section actually has an option for English or french translation.

redefinery

Jeff Almasol runs redefinery, and works as a Quality Engineer for Adobe After Effects, and he has been making scripts since around 2002.  He has around 40 scripts available at his site as well as the Adobe Exchange, and help expedite tasks like renaming solids, or splitting renders into specified sizes. 

AExtensions

Mathias Möhl is a new face in the scripting scene, but is really developing some amazing scripts to help with motion tracking using Mocha as well as keyframe modifiers like his Keytweak scripts.  Mathias has a very brilliant mind, and even though he has only been at the scripting thing for a little while, I foresee a lot of awesome things coming from AExtensions in the near future.

Yenaphe and Xscriptorium

Sebastien Perier doesn’t develop many scripts, except for a highly anticipated sParticular, but he does have a great blog that reports on new scripts as they come to fruition. He offers his blog in both english and french translations, and is a great resource worth bookmarking.  Xscriptorium is another kind of script aggregator, in which it reposts news, downloads and links to sites whenever new scripts are released.

If you have never actually dealt with scripts before, seriously… now is the time.  Talk about unlocking potential.  These are going to help make your productions easier, faster to work in and better looking.  To make sure they work correctly just download them, and place the .jsx directly into the Scripts folder, and if it supports dockable palettes, stick it in the Scripts UI folder.  Then when in After Effects go to File>Scripts and locate your Scripts/Scripts UI folder to open up the magical world of scripting.  As Maltaannon would say – Happy After Effecting!