Problems importing into After Effects CS6

[ChrisP]

Hi all,

I made a simple character, broke each body part in to layers and exported as Photoshop file (I used RGB color setting). When I went to import into AE it crashed each time. I then remade character in PS CS4 and it imported fine. I even took the PS file that was saved from AD and opened it up in PS and re-saved with different file name and it still crashed AE.

 

Any ideas? 

[Ben]

You say you load the PSD into Photoshop and do a Save-As? Seems odd that the resaved file PSD would also crash AE. You tried loading your exported PSD into any other apps?

[ChrisP]

I redid everything and it still happens.

 

I made a simple character to see if the workflow works. I exported the AD file as a PS file. I brought it in to AE and I get the error message below and then it crashes.

 

I then took the exported AD file and opened it in PS and re-saved (save-as) as a PS file with a different name. I then imported into AE and it crashed again - same error message.

 

Lastly, I opened the exported PS file (from AD) in PS CS4, made a new PS document and copied each layer of AD exported PS file to it. I then saved the new (native) PS file and brought it into AE and it worked (layers and all). Could this be a problem with the PS export function of AD?

 

Thoughts?

 

[ChrisP]

Also,

 I just tried to open the AD exported PS file in Illustrator CS6 and it worked fine. An AE issue?

[Ben]

That was my suspicion.  The PSD file we export is quite lightweight - we omit a large number of the extra tags that PS produces which are not necessary for creating the actual image contents (such as print information and halftoning), but the file format should allow for that.  Certainly PS is happy to open our files it seems without these tags, but maybe the parser used by AE is not the same one.

 

Do you still have the same problems with smaller Affinity files - with just some simple content like one or two raster layers, no affects or adjustments?

 

Thanks.

[ChrisP]

Yes.  The file I was trying was very small (8kb).

[ChrisP]

Any suggestions on how to get file from AD into AE? (That is without a huge workaround)

[Ben]

Have you tried loading the exported PSD file into Photoshop, making some minor changes (such as renaming layers) then resaving it.  It might be that results in a file that AE can use.  I suspect Photoshop will only replicate the file if nothing has changed.

 

Can you upload your exported PSD file here so I can see what's happening with it?

 

AE is obviously outside our control, and it's going to be difficult to work out exactly what might be crashing it.  That's not to say we won't try, but right now I'm wondering where to start.

 

The first version of AD PSD export only exported flattened raster layers and simple groups - no masks, layers effects or adjustment layers.  So, there's only so much that could go wrong with that.  Like I said, the only thing I can think of right now is the omission of certain parts of the file - but why that should result in a crash is surely more the fault of AE.