How to rotate a layer in photoshop script

Question

I'm trying to rotate a layer for an animation of my profile picture (below)

The initial layer name is "_a_Original" New copies should be "_a_Copy (copynumber)"

The idea is to rotate 360 times, 1 degree each time.

How would I do that?

I tried this answer, but it didn't seem to work, any way I can fix this?

Answer 1

Even thought you've not showed what you've attempted, this is quite straight forward. Firstly, you need to do list activate the ScriptListener - which records blocks of code for you.

After that it's basically three things. Duplicating a the original layer, rotating it x degrees and then repeating that 359 other times.

So with just your image as a layer in Photoshop and nothing else:

// Define angle and number of frames
var rotationAngle = 36; // I've set it to 36 as 360 will take 10 longer!

// rename the original
app.activeDocument.activeLayer.name = "original";

// loop over that rotationAngle number of times
for (var i = 0; i < rotationAngle; i++)
{
  // Duplicate layers
  // This is scriptListener code
  var id1572 = charIDToTypeID( "Dplc" );
  var desc350 = new ActionDescriptor();
  var id1573 = charIDToTypeID( "null" );
  var ref184 = new ActionReference();
  var id1574 = charIDToTypeID( "Lyr " );
  var id1575 = charIDToTypeID( "Ordn" );
  var id1576 = charIDToTypeID( "Trgt" );
  ref184.putEnumerated( id1574, id1575, id1576 );
  desc350.putReference( id1573, ref184 );
  var id1577 = charIDToTypeID( "Nm  " );
  desc350.putString( id1577, i+1 );
  var id1578 = charIDToTypeID( "Vrsn" );
  desc350.putInteger( id1578, 2 );
  executeAction( id1572, desc350, DialogModes.NO );
}

// Loop over it AGAIN!
for (var i = 0; i < rotationAngle; i++)
{
  // grab each layer in turn and make it active
  var thisLayer = app.activeDocument.layers[i];
  app.activeDocument.activeLayer = thisLayer;

  // rotate image x degrees
  var idTrnf = charIDToTypeID( "Trnf" );
  var desc802 = new ActionDescriptor();
  var idnull = charIDToTypeID( "null" );
  var ref237 = new ActionReference();
  var idLyr = charIDToTypeID( "Lyr " );
  var idOrdn = charIDToTypeID( "Ordn" );
  var idTrgt = charIDToTypeID( "Trgt" );
  ref237.putEnumerated( idLyr, idOrdn, idTrgt );
  desc802.putReference( idnull, ref237 );
  var idFTcs = charIDToTypeID( "FTcs" );
  var idQCSt = charIDToTypeID( "QCSt" );
  var idQcsa = charIDToTypeID( "Qcsa" );
  desc802.putEnumerated( idFTcs, idQCSt, idQcsa );
  var idOfst = charIDToTypeID( "Ofst" );
  var desc803 = new ActionDescriptor();
  var idHrzn = charIDToTypeID( "Hrzn" );
  var idPxl = charIDToTypeID( "#Pxl" );
  desc803.putUnitDouble( idHrzn, idPxl, 0);
  var idVrtc = charIDToTypeID( "Vrtc" );
  var idPxl = charIDToTypeID( "#Pxl" );
  desc803.putUnitDouble( idVrtc, idPxl, 0);
  var idOfst = charIDToTypeID( "Ofst" );
  desc802.putObject( idOfst, idOfst, desc803 );
  var idAngl = charIDToTypeID( "Angl" );
  var idAng = charIDToTypeID( "#Ang" );
  desc802.putUnitDouble( idAngl, idAng, i );
  var idIntr = charIDToTypeID( "Intr" );
  var idIntp = charIDToTypeID( "Intp" );
  var idNrst = charIDToTypeID( "Nrst" );
  desc802.putEnumerated( idIntr, idIntp, idNrst );
  executeAction( idTrnf, desc802, DialogModes.NO );
}

// Bingo you're all done