PathPrep

path preparation script

Download PathPrep V1.0 for After Effects on Windows and Mac, a powerful script that prepares paths for use with third-party plugins and expressions. This essential tool handles the technical complexities of path formatting, ensuring your vector paths work seamlessly with tools like Newton, Plexus, and other plugins that require specific path structures.

Key Features of PathPrep V1.0:

• Path Format Conversion: Converts After Effects mask and shape paths into formats compatible with third-party plugins
• Newton Integration: Specifically optimizes paths for use with Newton physics plugin, ensuring accurate collision and interaction
• Plexus Compatibility: Prepares path data for seamless use with Plexus point-based effects and geometry generation
• Error Prevention: Eliminates common path formatting issues that cause plugins to fail or behave unexpectedly
• One-Click Operation: Simple interface with minimal steps—select your path and let PathPrep handle the technical work
• Time-Saving Automation: Eliminates manual path conversion and troubleshooting, saving hours on complex projects
• Broad Plugin Support: Works with various third-party plugins that require specially formatted path data
• Cross-Platform Support: Compatible with both Windows and Mac systems

Perfect For:

• Motion graphics artists using Newton physics with custom shapes
• VFX designers creating Plexus networks from mask paths
• Anyone experiencing path compatibility issues with third-party plugins
• Studios looking to streamline technical workflows involving vector paths
• Creators who want to focus on design instead of path formatting headaches

System Requirements:

• Adobe After Effects (specific version compatibility per documentation)
• Windows 10/11 (64-bit) or macOS
• 4GB RAM minimum (8GB+ recommended)
• 10MB available disk space
• Enable “Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network” in Preferences > Scripting & Expressions

Installation:
Copy the script file to your After Effects ScriptUI Panels folder:

• Windows: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects [version]\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels\
• Mac: /Applications/Adobe After Effects [version]/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels/

Access via Window menu > PathPrep

Note: This is version 1.0, the initial release of this path preparation tool . Future updates may add support for additional plugins and path formats .

Convert multiple parametric shapes to Bezier paths, bake shape transforms, select all paths, and copy clean vectors

PathPrep for After Effects

PathPrep is a dockable After Effects ScriptUI panel that streamlines your shape layer workflow.
Convert parametric shapes to Bezier paths, bake transforms, select all paths, and copy clean vectors – all in just a few clicks.

Features

Convert multiple parametric shapes to editable Bezier paths
– Because “Convert To Bezier Path” shouldn’t mean clicking all day.

Select a shape layer, optionally choose which shapes to convert, and hit “Convert to Bezier Paths.” It’s a huge time-saver when you want to convert a lot of shapes, because After Effects’ regular menu command “Convert to Bezier Path” can only be used on one parametric shape at a time.

Apply Transforms
– Because transforms should help, not hinder.

Bake Anchor, Position, Scale and Rotation into Bezier Paths, with options to process all paths on the layer, or just user-selected ones, and options for Anchor point placement. Setting the anchor point to the shape’s bounding box center makes your transforms behave naturally – just like native AE behavior, ensuring post-bake editing stays intuitive.

Select all path properties at once
– Because finding all your paths shouldn’t feel like archaeology.

Quickly highlight every Bezier path in a shape layer and optionally add keyframes to them. Ideal for batch editing tasks. Saves heaps of time compared to tedious and time-consuming twirling / opening of multiple collapsed groups.

Copy Paths to Clipboard
– Because Illustrator wants your paths not your keyframes.

Copy raw vector data from After Effects shape paths, even if they’re animated, for pasting into Illustrator or other vector software.

Tutorial

How to Use

Open the panel via Window > PathPrep.jsxbin

The panel is resizable and dockable.

To get started, select a single shape layer. Only one shape layer can be processed at a time.

Note:
1. Even though the outward appearance of your shape layer will be unchanged, PathPrep’s conversions and transformations can significantly modify your shape layer’s underlying properties.
2. If you want to keep the original setup, duplicate your layer or composition.
3. Check for keyframes – the tool will skip problematic properties, but it’s good to know what won’t be processed.

The panel contains four collapsible sections:

1. Convert Parametric Shapes to Bezier Paths

Automatically converts the following parametric shapes to editable Bezier paths:

• Rectangles

• Ellipses

• Polystars (Stars and Polygons)

You can select which of these shape types get converted. You can also choose to convert all parametric paths on the layer, or just ones that you have selected yourself. When using the ‘Convert Selected’ option, be sure to select the parametric shapes directly — not the shape group or transform group.

Click “Convert to Bezier Paths” and the script will cleanly replace parametric shapes with Bezier equivalents. Each original parametric shape is removed after conversion, and its replacement is inserted at the same index in the shape group for consistency. An alert message will tell you the number of shapes that were converted. Converted shapes will no longer retain parametric properties (e.g., size sliders).

PathPrep uses its own fast transform math functions for converting all shapes. These functions produce identical results to After Effects’ native conversion methods, except that PathPrep’s conversion of Star Inner Roundness may show minor mathematical differences at extreme roundness settings

2. Apply Transforms

Bakes Anchor, Position, Scale and Rotation into Bezier Paths. You’ll need to convert parametric shapes to Bezier paths first if you want to apply transforms to them.

You can choose to apply transforms to all Bezier paths on the layer, or just ones that you have selected yourself. In “Apply to all” mode, PathPrep will work through all levels of groups and subgroups, applying each transform in the correct order – so even deeply nested paths get accurately transformed. When using the ‘Apply to Selected’ option, be sure to select the Path property directly – not the Path Group or Transform Group. In “Apply to selected” mode, the only transforms that will be applied are the ones directly associated with the selected paths.

You can also choose whether to set Anchors to the centers of each shape’s bounding box (best for intuitive editing), or to origin (0,0) – the center of the comp.

Gradients are scaled proportionally with transforms, except in the case of the Highlight Angle of a radial gradient on a path which has non-uniform scale (different X-Scale and Y-Scale values).

Stroke width transformation is also applied. If a path has non-uniform scale (different X-Scale and Y-Scale values), then the transformed stroke weight will be the average of the X-Scale and the Y-Scale.

For dashed strokes, Dash and Gap lengths are scaled proportionally with transforms. Dash offsets are preserved at their original values, so you may see the dashes move along the path. For best results when applying transforms to dashed strokes, consider using an offset of 0.

Stroke Taper and Stroke Wave parameters are also scaled proportionally with transforms.

Stroke Miter Limit scales proportionally, however, small precision/rounding changes in the Bezier control points might slightly alter the angles at sharp corners, potentially pushing some miters just over the limit threshold.

The script skips certain paths and groups when applying transforms to ensure accuracy and avoid breaking animations:

– Parametric shapes can’t be baked because their points aren’t editable.

– Paths or transforms with keyframes are skipped to protect your animation.

– Same goes for any of these if they are animated: Gradient Start and End Points, Stroke Width and some of the Dashes, Taper and Wave parameters.

– Skew transforms are skipped because they can produce extreme or unpredictable distortion when baked.

– And if a group contains any of these things, it’s skipped to keep things safe and consistent.

An alert message will tell you the number of paths that had transforms applied, and whether any paths were skipped. You may occasionally see a visual glitch where paths appear incorrectly transformed just before clicking OK. This is a temporary display issue in After Effects’ rendering – the actual transforms are calculated correctly and will display properly once you click OK.

3. Select All Path Properties

Recursively selects all Path properties in the selected shape layer with a single click.

When you click on the “Select All Path Properties” button, what gets selected are the keyframeable paths themselves, not their enclosing Path groups. If a path’s points are animated then all keyframes will be selected.

This feature is useful for further batch actions, for example creating Nulls from all Path points. (This can be accessed from After Effects’ Layer > Create menu in AE 2025+, or Window > Create Nulls from Paths.jsx in older versions of After Effects.)

The “Add Keyframe” button can be used to add keyframes. (Press Cmd+U/Ctrl+U to reveal the keyframes that have been added.)

You can copy the selected paths with Cmd+C/Ctrl+C. Note that if any of the paths are animated then keyframe data will be copied. If you just want to copy paths see “Copy Paths to Clipboard” below:

4. Copy Paths to Clipboard

Copies paths as raw vectors without keyframe data for pasting into Illustrator or other software that accepts vector paths from the clipboard.

Best practice is to use Convert Parametric Shapes and Apply Transforms first.

When you click “Copy Paths to Clipboard”, only path data will be copied, therefore it will be necessary to add strokes and fills manually in Illustrator. It will also be necessary to reverse the order of the pasted paths by highlighting them in Illustrator’s Layers panel and choosing Reverse Order from the Layers panel menu.

Notes

• Best practice: Prep your paths in the right order. Convert Shapes -> Apply Transforms -> Keyframe or copy the prepped paths.

• Expressions Aren’t Supported:

If your shape layer uses expressions, we recommend avoiding using PathPrep. Here’s why:
Expressions can create complex webs of dependencies where one property references another, which references another, and so on. Tracking all these relationships accurately would be extremely complex and error-prone. Since expressions are typically used for dynamic, procedural animation, they don’t align well with the “baking” workflow that PathPrep is designed for.

For expression-heavy projects:
If you have expressions but still want to use PathPrep, consider:

Creating a duplicate composition.
Removing expressions and keyframes from the duplicate.
Using PathPrep on the cleaned-up version.

Reminder

1. Even though the outward appearance of your shape layer will be unchanged, PathPrep’s conversions and transformations can significantly modify your shape layer’s underlying properties.
2. If you want to keep the original setup, duplicate your layer or composition.
3. Check for keyframes – the tool will skip problematic properties, but it’s good to know what won’t be processed.

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