DataDriver is an After Effects panel that turns one rigged comp into hundreds of personalized renders — text, images, palettes, charts, motion, and timing, all driven from a spreadsheet. Rig it once; the panel renders every row, right inside AE.
1 rig · 96 variations · ~40 minutes on an M2 Max.
Six things DataDriver gets out of your way — and a handful more below.
Tag any layer in your AE comp — text, image, color, footage, audio, even visibility — and it becomes a slot a spreadsheet column can fill.
Non-destructive pseudo-effect rigging across all primary layer types. Original comp untouched; rigs persist in project state and survive panel reload.
CSV, a Google Sheet you keep editing live, a REST endpoint, or a Marp deck. No data yet? Build the sheet straight from your comp and fill it in the panel.
Connectors for CSV, Google Sheets (web-owned OAuth, tokens stay local), REST (flat JSON + JSONPath), and Marp .md. Data Design reverse-rigs a schema from the comp, with in-panel type-aware cell editing and populate-from-folder.
One rig ships as 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, and 4:5 — and a single batch can render every row into every format at once.
Spatial layout engine with attachment rules + safe areas; layers reflow on resize. Multi-format fan-out renders one row into multiple aspect presets in a single batch pass.
Long names don't blow out. Short names don't look lonely. Faces don't get cropped at the eyebrows.
Text-fit modes (shrink / balance / wrap) plus focal-point image cropping with optional face detection. Per-layer fit rules survive aspect changes.
Drop a chart in the comp and let every row redraw it — bars, lines, the works — recolored to match the brand in one click.
In-panel chart creation with per-row data binding, atomic single-undo type-switching, and palette presets (Vivid / Pastel / Mono).
No more comp_001.mp4. Bake column values straight into the output filename — {{market}}_{{product}}_{{date}}.mp4 becomes Berlin_DanceShoes_2026-Q4.mp4 automatically.
Per-campaign filename templates with {{column}} interpolation, path-sanitization, and collision detection. Template lives with the rig, not the data.
Every rig also gets
Brand palettes & themes — flip every color in the comp from one column
Per-row motion — a different entrance animation for each row
Time & duration rules — in/out shifts + clip length from a column, text, or audio
Pre-render checklist — catches broken links & overflow before AE does
Auto-delivery — files land in S3, Drive, or Slack when a batch finishes
See it run
Watch a single comp turn a spreadsheet into a full campaign — every row mapped, checked, and rendered inside After Effects.
More from the studio
New sibling panel
Build a 3D camera tour that flies through your scene and bakes to render-ready keyframes — no expressions. Pair it with DataDriver and one tour carries every data row along for the ride.
Built for batches like these.
When the rig's ready
Two ways to finish, right inside your After Effects project. Choose per batch.
Batch · render
Queue the batch and walk away. DataDriver renders one finished clip per row, straight out of After Effects — no babysitting the render queue.
Named render profiles, multi-format fan-out, and auto-delivery to S3 / Drive / Slack when the batch finishes.
Batch · replicate
Not ready to render? Drop a real, editable comp for every row right into your project — perfect for hand-tweaking a few, building a reel, or handing rows off to CameraOp.
Materializes N independent comps in your project instead of rendering to file — each one ready to open and adjust.
Replicas that don't secretly share parts.
Here's the bit that usually bites you: duplicate a comp full of nested precomps and expressions and — in plain After Effects — the copies quietly point back at the originals. Tweak one, and ninety-five others change with it. DataDriver does it properly: every precomp gets its own copy and every expression is rewired to match, so each replica is genuinely its own thing.
Deep-duplicates nested precomps per row and rewrites expression references to the new copies — collision-safe naming, no shared state.
Request an invite and we'll set you up with DataDriver and CameraOp.