Use AE render tokens to automatically set file names and paths

Here’s a quick workflow tip in After Effects to help speed up/eliminate the process of setting file paths and names in the Render Queue by using tokens similar to C4D. This can be customized to individual or studio folder structures and also helps when jumping between multiple projects throughout the day.

Here’s how the default File Name and Location Template settings look when adding a comp to the Render Queue:

Start by clicking the dropdown beside the File Name and clicking custom:

Now in the File Name and Location Template window, click on the Add Property drop-down to start creating a custom template:

Highlighted are a few useful properties to use as an example. One of the most useful properties is [projectFolder], which will set your Export File Path from the folder where your AE project is saved. This helps to avoid navigating between folders when working on multiple projects at the same time.

You can also navigate through your folder structure to your preferred render location by using ..\ to go back a folder and \ to move forward.

As an example, to create a template for this folder structure that is organised by the Date, Project Name and Comp Name:

Would be: [projectFolder]..\..\06_renders\AE\[dateYear][dateMonth][dateDay]\[projectName]\[compName].[fileExtension]

You can also simply name your comp [projectName] if there is only one output in your project. Each time you version up, the name will follow.

Then click the Save Preset button to create the new preset.

To set the new preset as default, Ctrl+click on the preset name in the drop down. This also works in the Render Queue to set any other presets as default.

Ctrl+click

Now when comps are added to the Render Queue, they’ll automatically be set to the render folder:

One last step, since this template is using the [projectFolder] property, it’s necessary to click on the Output name and choose save in order to set the full File Path:

Now the comps are ready to render.

If you’d like to use Media Encoder at this point, click Queue in AME to send to Media Encoder with the set file paths:

One last note is that this doesn’t work perfectly with third party utilities like Render Garden, some workarounds may be needed to see what works for each.