The Commander is an all-in-one command launcher After Effects script that can apply effects, expressions, run menu commands, and scripts.

After Effects Scripts are like a magic wand, with few lines of spells and you can pretty much do anything in After Effects.

There are many good programmers (Coding Gurus) who created some of the most famous and commercially used After Effects Scripts and you might have heard about most of them.

But, in a world far away, there are few good people who in their dungeons created some useful After Effects scripts you probably do not know about.

From optimizing workflows to automating stuff. You name it, they’ve got it!

One such free After Effects is “The Commander“.

The Commander After Effects Script

Video copilot back in October 2016 launched a free plugin for optimizing After Effects workflow – FX Console.

But did you know that this famous Video Copilot plugin is actually based on a script launched way back in early 2016 – The Commander.

The Commander is an all-in-one command launcher script for After Effects that can apply effects, and expressions and can even run menu commands and scripts.

The Commander is capable of locating and opening items in the Project panel as well.

Everything happens in a single unified interface so that you can spend more time being creative.

The Commander script

Download

To launch the script, you need to set up a keyboard shortcut. In a Windows-based computer,

  1. Navigate to General > Preferences and click on Reveal Preferences in Explorer.
  2. Open the text file named ‘Adobe After Effects 12.0 Win en_US Shortcuts’. The name of the file depends on the version of After Effects. Make sure you look for the text file that ends with Shortcuts.
  3. Search for the entry “ExecuteScriptMenuItem01” and enter the desired keyboard shortcut.
  4. Save the text file and restart After Effects.

MAC users can go into system preferences and set up a custom app shortcut in the keyboard preferences panel.

How to launch a command

To launch any command, effect, or script,

  1. Launch The Commander UI using the keyboard shortcut you’ve selected.
  2. Once The Commander appears, type the name of the effect, command, or script your want to run.
  3. Select your desired command among the results and hit Enter key or click the “Make it happen!” button to execute it.

How to install The Commander

Windows Users: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects <version>\Support Files\Scripts \

Mac Users: /Applications/Adobe After Effects <version>/Scripts/

Compatibility

Commander After Effects script is compatible with Adobe After Effects CC and all the above versions.

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