Scene management

Advanced script, only for VideoGenius users.

The scene management script is specifically built for templates that will be added to our VideoGenius product. It’s mandatory to add this script in order for custom projects to work with the VideoGenius product. You need to add it to the composition that contains all the Scene compositions.

Scene management script setup

In the example above, this would be the mid composition. You can combine the Scene Management script with other scripts in order to achieve the output you wish. You can see in the example below how we did this using a combination of Scene management, ShiftIn and Crop scripts.

Scene management script setup on Plainly app

After adding the script to the composition that has all of your scenes, you will be required to set up the following fields:

Main asset layer name - this is the layer that contains the main asset. This basically means the voiceover or the avatar video layer that will drive the length of the video.
Scene composition prefix - specify what’s the prefix of your Scene compositions. For example, if you name the scenes “Scene 1”, “Scene 2”, etc. in After Effects, you should write Scene in this field.
Max scenes - specify the maximum amount of scenes that this template can have.
Scene overlap - specify the overlap (in frames) that your scene compositions have. This ensures that you can animate a nice transition between the scenes.
Media composition prefix - similarly to the Scene composition prefix, you need to specify what’s the prefix in the name of your media compositions. If you name your media compositions “Media 1”, “Media 2”, etc. in After Effects, you should write Media in this field. Media compositions are compositions that contain the asset for each scene.
Scene asset layer name - specify the name of the layer that contains the asset in the scenes. This can be either an image or a video layer.
Headline composition prefix - same as Scene composition prefix, or Media composition prefix but for headlines. Specify the prefix in the name of your headline compositions. Headline compositions should contain the headline and the sub-headline layers.
Max headlines - specify the max amount of headlines (and sub-headlines) per scene.
Heading layer name - specify the name of the headline text layers.
Sub-heading layer name - specify the name of the sub-heading text layers.

Few things to keep in mind

Scene, media and asset compositions need to be named the same throughout the template. This is important because if you specify the Media composition prefix to be Media, the script can’t find your media compositions if you name one media comp Media 1 in the first scene, and then Media Second in the second scene. Keep the naming consistent.
This is also true for headlines and sub-headlines.
Best practice is to create the first scene, and then duplicate it to keep the structure, and then work on the graphic elements, transitions, etc. Make sure that you don’t reuse the compositions, and don’t forget to change the numbers (Media 1, Media 2, Media 3, etc.) depending on the scene.