Supplementing layer colours with dots and dashes
  • john McGeochjohn McGeoch
    Can anyone add functionality to the poor number of layer colours in After Effects - ideally I would like  to be able to differentiate layers of the same colour with dashes or dots :  - so  if I have three layers all related subject wise - say Ghosts, it`s Halloween, - but I want to quickly differentiate between them and not precomp them, the lead ghost could be yellow with a line of dashes , the second have a line of dots and the third be plain colour. If I had another group of different ghosts then they could be green but also with, dashes, dots and plain etc. That way I can quickly identify lead figures etc.  There could be more than dots and dashes but even these would make visual organisation much easier  ...  cheers John McGeoch
  • Lloyd AlvarezLloyd Alvarez
    You have two options:
    • You can use Zorro to "tag" layers and group them in any way you want without having to pre-comp.
    • If you just want to do Photoshop style grouping you can use Layer Groups
  • john McGeochjohn McGeoch
    Thanks Lloyd but neither of these are what I want, I don`t want them grouped photoshop style and popped into a group container, nor do I want them named in the `comments` which gives even less room for the timeline. I really want something very simple and directly on the coloured bars of the layers, an extension to the Label group itself, it could be more colours, but I think that dots or dashes over the colours would be easier to determine and very quick to use and identify. Maybe it`s a request to Adobe and not something that can be done by scripts / expressions................
  • Kevin SchiresKevin Schires
    That's what I was about to say. You'd rather share your thoughts with Adobe since I don't think scripts or plugins could ever change the appearance of AE to such extent.
  • john McGeochjohn McGeoch
    Thanks - will do
  • Lloyd AlvarezLloyd Alvarez
    Did you try Zorro?  It has the option to place the tags as a layer marker comment so you can create a tag that is  name with dots or dashes or whatever you want and they will be placed on top of the layer in the timeline without taking up any extra space.

    Of course if you want a very specific UI modification you will need to Adobe to do it but don't get your hopes up.
Add a Comment