Turning off incremental renaming when duplicating?

Question

Hi all.
Is there a way to STOP my old friend After Effects from adding a number to items I duplicate?
This "feature" causes me nothing but confusion, and I waste a lot of time everyday renaming things because of it.
If I have ten things, and I duplicate number 3, it becomes number 11. How am I meant to know it is a new version of number 3?
I would rather rename it myself based on the item's actual name, ideally by being highlighted automatically when I duplicate.
Am sure it must be in a preferences file somewhere?
If not then I will have to log it as feature request.
Tris

Answer 1

As I understand your folder structure now it looks something like this:
Folder for Comp 1 Folder Vectors A
asset 1
asset 2
asset 3
Folder for Comp 2 Folder Vectors A
asset 1
asset 2
asset 3
Folder for Comp 3 Folder Vectors A
asset 1
asset 2
asset 3
Folder for Comp 4 Folder Vectors A
asset 1
asset 2
asset 3
This may work for you but back when I ran a team working on a huge project this would have confused everybody. It makes as much sense to me as duplicating folders on your hard drive. Put in a production environment that would be disastrous. When the main logo must be edited who knows which copy of the logo in which folder is now the right one.
You have a little more protection in AE because all of the duplicate folders in the Project for Folder Vectors A still point to the same asset. For me it's cleaner to have all assets in their own folders. My folder structure for projects exactly matches the folder structure and naming conventions on the network or on the hard drives. Everything is always in the same place. It looks like this in the finder:
The ending number is a date string formatted year month day so they always sort chronologically. All work for a given client lives in a numbered client folder. Even without a search I can find any project, any asset from any date for any client by simply going to that client's number and scrolling to the right date.
We keep all assets are logged in a database that can be queried from any device with a browser and an Internet connection. All revisions are tracked in the database. There are no duplicate files for anything on the working drives. Change the Master Assets Company Logo and every project for that client gets the change automatically. Old logo versions are archived so we can go back at any time with a single file rename.
This example is from an AE animation with more than 900 layers from .ai files that have between 250 and 3 layers. See the audio change on 20120916 and the new AEP on the same date. That was an update of the file that took (don't tell the client - about an hour because it was easy to replace things, make timing adjustments, and get the job done in a profitable manner. I replaced about 40 layers with new artwork in about 20 seconds, replaced the audio track in about 10 seconds, and spent the rest of the time fine tuning the timing. This re-do was a painless moneymaker because everything is organized.
Here's what the AE Project looks like:
I didn't spin down the ArtWork folder because there are 9 Imported AI as a Comp folders in there as well as a half dozen or more other artwork files.
The search field in the Timeline allowed me to locate layers in the comp that I had duplicated and renamed and isolate them faster than any other method. I think it took 3 keystrokes. The search field in the Project Panel located the new Illustrator layer that was to replace the 40 or so layers in the comp (scattered over 5 minutes). Ctrl/Cmnd + a selected all the visible layers in the timeline. Alt/Option + drag from the Project Panel replaced all instances of the footage. The new audio track was added to the comp. The timing of these layers was adjusted to fit the audio. The comp was duplicated twice to create a total of 3 versions for other minor changes and color adjustments.
There are no duplicate resource references in the project panel. Anyone could have opened this project and made the changes. It's easy for the database to keep track of everything. There's only one place to search for footage, audio, and artwork.
I'm not trying to convert you, just to show you how I have organized projects for 40 years when there are hundreds even thousands of assets in a project that have to be looked at by dozens of people. Before we had computers to keep track of things we had ledger books, file cabinets, and racks for the film. I learned these organizational skills from an editor with a dozen feature films to her credit and a production manager with 30 years in Hollywood. All of these procedures are published in my Quality Assurance / Quality Control manual. The goal is a system that minimizes the probability of errors and has a simple reporting strategy. Answer 3 questions about any project and you know if procedure was followed and if you are using the right materials.