Environment Setup for Designing on Windows
You.i TV has a custom integration with Adobe After Effects (AE) to give you a seamless experience with the Adobe suite you’re already familiar with. To get started, you’ll need to install our You.i Platform, then our AE plugin. We support Adobe After Effects Creative Cloud version 2018 through 2021.
All motion designers working on the same project must use the same versions of both You.i Platform and AE.
When it comes to installing the plugin, you have two options:
Which installation method should you choose? It depends on how you plan to work.
We have a special Preview Tool that lets you preview your designs in AE regardless of how you install the plugin. If previewing is all you want to do, your simplest option is to install only the plugin.
However, if you’d like to export your designs from AE and test them on actual devices, you’ll need You.i Platform installed. In that case, use the second installation option.
To install the You.i Platform, you need to know how to use a Windows command prompt, terminal window, or PowerShell window. You’ll also need administrator permissions for your PC. You may need to contact your IT department to get these permissions.
Option 1: Install the Plugin Only
If you’re working with a development team that already has You.i Platform installed, you can install and use the plugin files without installing the full You.i Platform installation package.
As of You.i CLI version 2.5.14, you can install the plugin with the youi-tv tools command.
Ask a developer to zip the contents of the youiengine\6.15.0\tools\AEPlugin folder.
When you unzip the file, you’ll have two folders:
Plug-insScripts
Copy the Plugins to After Effects
Close After Effects, then use Windows Explorer to navigate to the Plug-ins folder you unzipped.
Copy all the files in that folder.
Navigate to your After Effects application folder, then the Support Files > Plugins subfolder.
Paste the copied files into the Plugins subfolder.
Copy the Scripts to After Effects
Go to the Scripts folder you unzipped and navigate to the ScriptUI Panels subfolder.
Copy everything from that folder.
Back in your After Effects application folder, navigate to Support Files > Scripts > ScriptUI Panels.
Paste your copied files into the ScriptUI Panels subfolder.
You can now test the plugin.
Option 2: Install the You.i Platform and the Plugin
Open a new command prompt as the local administrator. To do this, right-click the application you want to run, and select “Run As Administrator.”
If you already have You.i Platform installed, skip ahead to install the plugin.
Check for Prerequisites
Chocolatey
See whether Chocolatey is installed.
chocolatey --version
If Chocolatey is installed, compare the version with our supported version, 0.10.11. If you have a mismatch, install the right version.
If you get an error that the command isn’t found, follow the instructions here to install Chocolatey.
Yarn
You’ll need the Yarn package manager. We support version 1.13.x through 1.22.x.
Check to see whether Yarn is installed.
yarn --version
If it’s installed, verify that the version is 1.13.x through 1.22.x. If it’s not installed, or if you have a version mismatch, follow the installation instructions provided by Yarn to install the correct version.
Install You.i Platform
From the same command prompt window as before, run the following command to install the You.i TV command line tool (often called the CLI, or command line interface).
yarn global add youi-cli
Then, log in to our server with your provided API key and install the You.i Platform.
youi-tv login # Enter your API key or user name when prompted.
youi-tv install 6.15.0 # If asked, accept most recent version of Babel or other dependencies
Install the Plugin
Run the following command to install the plugin to the After Effects Plug-ins folder:
youi-tv setup-plugin
A prompt appears if privileges are needed to continue. If installation is successful, you’ll see a message like the following:
-> Installed AEPlugin version 6.15.0 into \Applications\Adobe After Effects 2021
The setup-plugin command above assumes you’ve installed the latest version of You.i Platform.
If you have multiple versions of You.i Platform installed, you may get an error.
You can specify the You.i Platform version you want to use with youi-tv select.
Then, try installing the plug-in again.
If the installation fails, you can you can use Option 1 to install the files manually instead, by copying them from your You.i Platform installation folder.
Test the Plugin
To verify that the AE plugins and scripts are installed correctly, launch After Effects and open the Composition menu. The menu shows a number of entries beginning with You.i.
Next, open the After Effects Window menu and look for You.i options near the bottom of the menu.
You can also check the contents of your Plug-ins folder under your AE install.
You should see the following plugins:
You.i Baton.pluginYou.i Style.pluginYouiEngine.plugin
Now you might want to:
- learn more about the Design Workflow
- run through a tutorial