J&G 4 - Beta

To try the beta script: Beta Folder
Download the beta script file and put it into your scripts folder (see current installation instructions for J&G3 for a refresher.)

Good news! It's pretty much done. Just need to test it on things and create tutorials.

• First, it does not require After Effects 2018, so any version of After Effects CC should work fine. (Sorry CS6 users) It certainly is more efficient and quicker if you have 2018 compared to earlier versions, but hey.
• Instead of using 20+ effects, it now uses around 8, so it's much, much quicker than before. (Regardless of which AE version you're running)
• No more precomposing, this does change up how the script operates though, so be aware of that:
  • You no longer create a certain number of masks on the layer and magic happens. You now work on layers directly, applying what you need appropriately and when you want.
  • The J&G effects are now visible on the layer itself so you can either put your own effects before them, or after them, or tie effects to them if you so choose.
  • All controls for the entire composition are on a single null layer called J&G Controls. Hopefully simplifying things.
• It does work on video, but I would highly suggest you rotoscope first before using the script! The tutorial will explain why.
• I'm going to try and get the Shadows tool into it before full release, but that may have to wait as my vacation is up soon.

If you try this out and run into a bug, please let me know in the comments so I can look into it. I will need your .aep file and a brief description of what you have selected and what you're trying to get the script to do so I can recreate it. Remember, it's a beta!

Bug fixes 11/26/2017:
Fixed: Expression missing ; for single bounce. [Added ;]
Fixed: Pendulum swings upside down when initial bounce angle was between -90 and 90 or variations. [Took that into account.]
Found bug: function CopyToComp() does not allow the Undo feature... known AE bug.
Found bug: You can apply the jiggle effect to the same layer, using different jiggle types breaks everything.
11/27/2017
Fixed: CopyToComp() by not using CopyToComp() and manually making a copytocomp that does work with Undo.
11/28/2017
Fixed: You can no longer apply the jiggle effect twice to the same layer.
12/2/2017
Fixed: Top Layer Jiggle could not be applied after a Reshape.
Fixed: Reshape was being placed in incorrect order if applied after Jiggle Effect.
Fixed: Top Layer Jiggle would delete Reshape if being re-applied to account for new layers with Jiggle Effect.
12/4/2017
Fixed: Applying Reshape (Altering DMComp) would fail. Similar to above, but not quite.
12/8/2017
Found bug:Pendulum gets out of balance after first pass when running in reverse or grav_direction > initial bounce direction...
12/14/2017
Fixed Pendulum bug: Took a long time to fix this, rewrote it quite a few times and each time it turned into a if/else nightmare. Finally got a method that works, not quite as pretty as before, but still worth it.
12/16/2017
Fixed Speed Bug: When using keyframes on bounce speed the first keyframe wouldn't propagate to the first frame of the comp like it was supposed to.

Jiggle & Grow 4

Off and on I've been working on J&G script 4. It's coming along quite well - at least the expression are.

This post is for those of you who want to try it out:

Beta Folder
You'll need both files. Keep in mind, this is just to test the expressions and effects, it doesn't have the script portion so this is literally just a file with fancy controls, you can't use it on your own image.

First: you'll need the newest version of After Effects (2018). This is because I'm abusing a new feature unique to this version. So yes, that does mean only the people running 2018 or newer will be able to run this script. Don't blame me that Adobe just now got around giving expressions access to mask paths.
Edit: This is no longer true for a couple reason I'll maybe explain later, but the short answer is now the script detects which version you have and will do different things accordingly.

What's new?

• No more Precomposing. It's all handled up front.
• All expressions have been re-written from the ground up, so they are better in efficiency and readability.
• New Gravity feature. As the bounce amount crosses the threshold of the gravity amount, the bounce will transition into a more pendulum like movement to behave more like breasts.
• No more 37 Smears. Instead, I've opted to use a displacement map to achieve a similar effect - way faster than before. (This uses a thing that was added in the early 2017 version of After Effects)
• "Heftiness" has turned into Stiffness. Similar setting, but does a bit more.

and...

• This version will support video! The reason is because I'll have access to the mask paths in the expressions, letting me control many more things on the fly.

I'd love to switch to liquify; however, I'm running into issues with that because with liquify there's no way for me to figure out how the user moved the "growth", so... I'm still using reshape for the main expansion effect.