It sounds like you’re working through a complex design process involving multiple tracks/layers and merge fields. Let’s organize your thoughts and questions into a coherent forum post for better clarity and assistance:
Title: Streamlining Video Template Creation with Merge Fields and API Integration
I’m currently working on a video project with numerous tracks that require identical transitions, positioning, and text changes. As I delve into the process, I’ve come up with a few questions and insights that I hope the community can help with.
Merge Field Customization: I’m considering using merge fields for settings like position and font size to speed up template building. My question is: If a merge field doesn’t receive any input during the API call, will it default to the settings used in the template?
Database Entry Requirements: Do I need to include every detail like position or font size in my database entries for the API to process them correctly? It seems a bit excessive and potentially data-intensive.
Limitations with Merge Fields: It appears that merge fields don’t allow for setting horizontal or vertical offsets. Any workarounds or solutions for this?
Transitions and Animations: Would it be odd to use merge fields for transitions and animations? I’m trying to find a way to duplicate layers (or tracks) efficiently, which would significantly reduce the time needed for template creation.
Naming Layers/Tracks for Better Management: With 28 layers and more to add, the ability to name them for easy identification would be immensely helpful.
Potential Track Limit Issues: I encountered a “cannot save” error after reaching a certain number of tracks with merge fields. I managed to resolve it temporarily by deleting some entries, but I’m concerned about hitting a limit as I add more. – This didn’t happen but I’m curious if there is a limit in case I want to try merging the 60 second videos into one big, longer video.
Any advice, insights, or experiences shared would be greatly appreciated. This project is an exciting challenge, and I’m keen to optimize the process as much as possible.
I’ve been encountering some scheduling automation failures and I’m curious if there’s a way to resolve these to keep up with my rapid workflow. Here’s a screenshot showing one of the issues I’m facing. [Screenshot attached]
Inconsistency in Automation: The failures seem random, but occasionally, the system works itself out in about 30 minutes to an hour. I’m not sure if this is a standard behavior or just a fluke.
Automatic Retry Feature?: I’ve noticed a couple of instances where a render appeared to complete on its own after a failure, without my intervention. Is there an automatic retry mechanism in place? If not, it might be a useful feature to consider, as it seems the system receives the data correctly.
Spacing Out Requests: Do you think spacing out my production requests might help? The response times are impressively fast, so I’m hesitant to slow down unless necessary.
The Future of Tech and AI: On a side note, the advancements in technology and AI are astounding. It’s exciting to think that in the near future, the need for personal computers as we know them might diminish, and our interaction with the internet will transform dramatically.
Recent Success: Despite these hiccups, I’ve had great success creating a series of 5 videos from one template, set to run weekly. That’s a huge win!
No Rush on the Reply: I understand that resolving these issues might take some time. There’s no rush – I just wanted to share my thoughts and seek advice.
Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Just want to note I could really use a “lock” UI on the tracks. I just rendered two videos and somehow must have wiped the text to the side when exiting after my last edit of the template.
No, you can definitely use merge fields for transitions and/or effects. But similar to your previous question you would have to set up those merge fields inside of the JSON.
Yes. This is something we are keen to do. @Umut for visibility.
This shouldn’t be an issue. There is no limit on tracks or clips. When you experience this again can you share this with us?
That’s an odd error that seems Make related. Do you have any way to reproduce this error?
If you are encountering failures after which the render still succeeds these may be Make-related issues. The only way we notify users that a render did not succeed is when you receive a "status": "failed" back in the Get Status module.
No. If you go over a limit your requests will be queued but will always be processed. We’re built for speed and reliability so you shouldn’t have to worry about that.
Completely agree!
Hopefully we made a start with these answers so far
Agree. It’s something that we’d like to add at some point. But this may take a little while.
Let me answer them one by one.