by Creative Impatience·Workflow
Images © Creative Impatience. Used for product review; image policy.
Spanning After Effects CS6 through 2020, CI Master Thumbnailer covers a broad range of versions and includes preset-based naming and folder-structure replication for output.
CI Master Thumbnailer is a script from Creative Impatience for After Effects that generates thumbnails for compositions, layers and video clips. Output can be produced at a resolution expressed in pixels or as a percentage of clip dimensions, and at various proportions or as a center crop.
Frames can be captured at the start of the clip, at the end, at comp or clip markers, or at a given time expressed in seconds, frames or a percentage of total length. Thumbnails can also be spaced by a given amount of frames, seconds or percentage of total length, or divided into a number of equally spaced frames per clip. Output can be named with a custom scheme that can be saved as a preset, and saved to a given folder or subfolders replicating the project folder structure.
A recent addition lets you render composition layers to separate files and folders. Version 1.2.3 supports a wide span of After Effects releases, from CS6 through After Effects 2020, and a demo video is available.
CI Master Thumbnailer is best for after Effects users who need to generate thumbnails from compositions, layers and video clips.
CI Master Thumbnailer is completely free to download and use.
CI Master Thumbnailer lists compatibility with After Effects 2020, CC 2019, CC 2018, CC 2017, CC 2015.3, CC 2015, CC 2014, CC and CS6. That span covers older CS6-era projects through the 2020 release, so most timeline workflows across those versions are covered. Note that rendering at comp markers requires After Effects version 14.0 and higher, per the changelog. Check the developer's page to confirm the current version against your installed release of After Effects.
CI Master Thumbnailer can capture at the start of the clip, at the end, at comp or clip markers, or at a given time in the clip expressed in seconds, frames or as a percentage of total length. It can also space thumbnails by a given amount of frames, seconds or percentage of total length, or divide a clip into a number of equally spaced frames. These options give you several ways to control which frames become thumbnails.
CI Master Thumbnailer names thumbnails with a custom scheme that can later be saved as a preset, so you can reuse a naming pattern across projects. Output can be saved to a given folder, or to subfolders replicating your project folder structure. A recent addition also lets you render composition layers to separate files and folders. Together these options let you organize generated thumbnails to match how your project is arranged.
CI Master Thumbnailer is listed as free in this catalog. Licensing terms can change over time, so check the developer's page at Creative Impatience or its aescripts listing for the current details before you download. Version 1.2.3 was last updated on 2020-07-25, and that release included a fix so a comma in a composition name no longer causes the render to fail. A demo video is also available for the tool.
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