🐧️ Flipper

Flipper is an After Effects script that 'flips' the current composition left-to-right. This is a common, simple technique for both checking the balance of your composition and getting a different perspective on it if you feel stuck or like something is off, without knowing what.

That's all there is to it.

Flipper was available to subscribers to the Animatable newsletter in Spring 2023. It will be made publicly available later in 2023.

Installation

Flipper can be run as a ScriptUI Panel with a button if you install it in your ScriptUI Panels folder, but our suggested way is to use a launcher utility like KBar, or a keyboard shortcut. The next steps describe how to install and run it with a keyboard shortcut:

Quit After Effects if it is running. Rename the file Flipper.jsxbin to 0 Flipper.jsxbin by adding a zero and a space to the start of the filename. Move it to your Scripts folder (not the ScriptUI Panels folder), which is located here:

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

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

You don't have to use a zero at the start of the filename, but the idea is to make sure the file appears near the start of an alphabetically ordered list, because keyboard shortcuts can only be assigned to the first 20 scripts. When you assign a shortcut to a script, you are not assigning it to the script by name, but rather by index - it's place in the list. If you assign a shortcut to Flipper when it is the first script in the list, that shortcut will be re-assigned to whichever script is first if you rename script files or otherwise cause their order to be changed.

Launch After Effects and click Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts. In the Keyboard Shortcuts window you will see a Search Bar, type the word Scripts into it. Scroll down the list of commands below the search bar until you see 0 Flipper.jsxbin. Click twice in the Shortcut column, on the same row as you see the filename. This should bring up a highlighted shortcut entry field. Now enter your preferred shortcut, and once see your shortcut in the box, go ahead and click the big OK button over on the right of the Keyboard Shortcuts window.

Usage

Run the script and it'll add an adjustment layer at the top of the current composition which visually flips everything. You can remove this layer with an Undo, or you can select and delete it, or you can just run Flipper again.

Suggestions

If you like Flipper, or if you wish it was somehow different, drop us a line. We're always happy to hear from folks.

Version History

1.0 - May 2023

Initial release