• Adobe After Effects

  layer name vs source name

  Posted by Jeremy Paul on January 27, 2017 at 6:51 pm

  What is the difference between Layer Name and Source Name? You can see this 2 option in the Timeline panel.

  

  

  Jeremy Paul replied 9 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Walter Soyka

  January 27, 2017 at 6:56 pm

  The layer name reflects what something is called in the timeline panel; the source name reflects what that same thing is called in the project panel.

  The layer name is initially the same as the source name. But when you rename a layer in the timeline panel, you are changing the layer name; the source name remains the same, referring to the name of the source item.

  In practice, I use usually use layer names to be descriptive about what a layer does in the comp, and rely on the source name to tell me what asset the layer uses.

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]
• 

  Jeremy Paul

  January 27, 2017 at 7:19 pm

  Thanks. I am playing around with ExtendScript. My first obstacle was not knowing what the terms above denote. I am trying to access layer by its name. I use this code, which works if a layer hasn’t been renamed yet.

  var fl = app.project.item(2).layer(“Blue”);
  var flDupl = fl.duplicate();

  If I rename the “Blue” layer, tried both in Timeline and Project panel, to let’s say “Blue2”, then the code

  var fl = app.project.item(2).layer(“Blue2”);
  var flDupl = fl.duplicate();

  triggers error saying ‘null is not an object’.

  Any idea what is going on?

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up