collect files query / also ‘find’ option

[Chris Brett]

— found a good fix in an earlier cow post from 2011 here https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/202/890369 — thanks to Angie Taylor for this one ..
..though this was only quick and easy because all the files were already in the collect files folder

…….Angies post doesnt explain why it happens in the first place and am still interested if anyone knows????

—————————————chris —–

[Chris Brett]

Hi Dave

———- reckon that when you ‘save’ it writes a link to footage which gets ‘broken’ sometimes – what surprised me though is that it cant be fixed by ‘collect files’ then copying assets to resulting ‘footage’ folder………

— guess its one of those bugs you learn to live with — its no big deal if you know how to solve it and exactly where where the footage is…………

————– cheers ————- chris —

[Walter Soyka]

[chris brett] “reckon that when you ‘save’ it writes a link to footage which gets ‘broken’ sometimes – what surprised me though is that it cant be fixed by ‘collect files’ then copying assets to resulting ‘footage’ folder”

Ae saves the the absolute path of footage items in the AEP. You can see this by looking at the “File Path” column in the project panel.

If it doesn’t find the file at the original absolute path, it also looks at the relative path based on the location of the AEP. (In other words, if you maintain the entire folder structure of an After Effects project file and its footage, stuff won’t go missing. That’s why “Collect files” makes a portable package.)

“Collect files” with a missing file will not alter the paths of missing files as you had hoped — although I do understand why you think it would be a good idea!

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Chris Brett]

thanks Walter …………..

………… spot on as always —-

———————— best regards —— chris —

==========================================================

[Walter Soyka]

[Dave LaRonde] “I’m very picky how I organize my AE projects, and it doesn’t match how AE collects files. After collecting files, I always have to put things the way I want them, and not the way Adobe says I should have them. The relative file path gets broken. I’m stubborn — I’m not about to change a project-organizing procedure I’ve used for darned near twenty years. So I always have to re-link footage. Fortunately, it’s a dead-simple thing to do.”

If you are methodical about how you organize your projects and always make sure you move/copy assets into a consistent relative path structure, you don’t need to do Collect Files to make them portable. They already are.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Chris Brett]

Hi Walter

— what exactly is a ‘consistent relative path’ please ?

——————————–chris —

[Walter Soyka]

[chris brett] “what exactly is a ‘consistent relative path’ please ?”

Sorry for my delay, Chris.

I’ll illustrate by example. You can create your own portable Ae folders, without using collect files, if you pre-organize your assets in the file system before bringing them into Ae, and if you ensure that when you move the AEP, you also move the footage files the exact same way.

I think the best way to do this is to keep everything contained within a single job folder, and to move/copy files there before importing, every time. If you don’t have the discipline to do that, then Collect Files is absolutely your best bet.

For example, you might make a folder structure like one of these:

[image]

In the example on the left, the absolute path to the Illustrator asset may be:
/Users/Walter/Desktop/Job folder/Assets/Illustrator asset.ai

But it’s relative path from the AEP file (which is itself located in /Users/Walter/Desktop/Job folder/) is:
Assets/Illustrator asset.ai

I’ve bolded the common elements.

In the example on the right, the absolute path is:
/Users/Walter/Desktop/Job folder/AI/Illustrator asset.ai

And the relative path from the AEP (located in /Users/Walter/Desktop/Job folder/AEPs/) is:
../AI/Illustrator asset.ai

I’ve bolded the common elements and underlined the different ones at the end. The “..” means “go up one level” or “parent of the current folder” and it’s what gets us back up the Job folder from the AEP (which is nestled in its own subfolder), then forward again into the AI folder.

Does this clarifying or more confusing?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Chris Brett]

Hi Walter

— excellent as usual — much appreciated —

( I dont know how you manage to learn all this stuff so thoroughly ! )

———————- best regards —chris brett —