: Is it possible to resynchronize after effects source name with its corresponding photoshop layer name after renaming the source name in after effects? I have an after effects project and a script

@Jamie315

The only way to "re-synch" a layer with Photoshop, that I know of, is to make sure that the layer name in AE is the same as the source name in AE.

This however is not super pretty, as the layer names would look something like [my layer/my project file.psd] and I'm not sure how your export script would handle it.



I wrote this scrip that will go through every layer and change the layer name if it doesn't match its source name.

Inside the for loop, I put two different ways to change name and I think the latter one, that I left uncommented, is the one that would let you use the export script without any issues.

It doesn't re-synch the layers with photoshop, so this might be something you'd want to run before you run the export script.

The script:

{

if ( app.project.activeItem ) {

var project = app.project;
var comp = project.activeItem;
var layers = comp.layers;

// Loop through every layer in the active comp...
for ( i = 1; i <= layers.length; i++ ) {

var layer = comp.layer( i );
var layerName = layer.name;
var layerSourceName = layer.source.name;

// If layer name doesn't match the sourcename (minus the psd filename and extension)...
if ( layerName !== layerSourceName.split('/')[0] ) {

/*
Replaces the layername with [empty], which will force AE to use the source name.
Stays in synch with Photoshop...
*/

// layer.name = '';

/*
Replaces the current filename with the first half of the source name.
Doesn't stay in synch with Photoshop...
*/

layer.name = layerSourceName.split('/')[0];

}

}

}

}






As it is, the script will change the layer names...

from this:

Layer name Source name
logo picture 1/project.psd
animation character/project.psd


to this:

Layer name Source name
picture 1 picture 1/project.psd
character character/project.psd


If you uncomment line 24 and comment line 31, the layer names will go...

from this:

Layer name Source name
logo picture 1/project.psd
animation character/project.psd


to this:

Layer name Source name
[picture 1/project.psd] picture 1/project.psd
[character/project.psd] character/project.psd


In AE, if layer name has square brackets, it means that it matches the source name.

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@Hamm6457569

I don't know of any way to do this from with the After Effects UI. It's probably doable with scripting, so this is something that might be worthwhile to ask on the Adobe AE forum.

For a 100+ layer file, I'd estimate it would be a 15-20 minute job to rename all the layers in AE by hand to restore their correspondence to the PSD layer names. Unfortunately, that won't help going forward, because as far as I can tell (I just tested this, because I'd never tried it specifically) the moment you touch the layer name in AE, the connection to the layer name in Ps is broken. At least it avoids losing a week's work, though.

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