• Adobe After Effects

  Scripting: Change layer marker attributes

  Posted by Peter Nepp on March 16, 2020 at 3:41 pm

  Hi there,

  I want to alter attributes of existing layer markers via ExtendedScript. But something like:

  app.project.item(50).layer(3).property("Marker").keyValue(1).comment = "New comment!";

  doesn’t work at all. I mean there’s no error message or something like this. But the actual value won’t change in the UI, and retrieving the value via script with:

  $.writeln(app.project.item(50).layer(3).property("Marker").keyValue(1).comment)

  after assigning a new one is returning the previous (unaltered) value instead. This is weird somehow. The documentation says these attributes on MarkerValue objects are “read” AND “write”. Did I get something wrong?

  Thanks,
  Peter

  Peter Nepp replied 6 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Walter Soyka

  March 16, 2020 at 4:41 pm

  You have to use .setValueAtTime(), with the time of the marker you want to change and a MarkerValue object to change it to. Try something like this:

  app.project.item(50).layer(3).property("Marker").setValueAtTime(app.project.item(50).layer(3).property("Marker").keyTime(1), new MarkerValue("New comment!"));

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

  Peter Nepp

  March 16, 2020 at 5:07 pm

  Hi Walter,

  many thanks, that did the trick.

  This is still a bit weird to me. ????

  Peter
• 

  Walter Soyka

  March 16, 2020 at 7:38 pm

  It is a bit weird. The documentation doesn’t make this super-clear, but markers are basically a special kind of keyframe, and keyframe values are set with .setValueAtTime(). Not only that, but markers use a MarkerValue object as their data type, so if you want to change the comment text, you have to do so by creating a MarkerValue object to contain the comment.

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

  Peter Nepp

  March 17, 2020 at 12:06 pm

  Hi Walter,

  if this is the way to go, so be it. ☺

  My way to handle this conveniently:
  
var ctrl = ....

  var marker = ctrl.property("Marker").keyValue(1);
  var markerTime = ctrl.property("Marker").keyTime(1);

  marker.label = 1;
  marker.comment = "New Comment!"

  ctrl.property("Marker").setValueAtTime(markerTime, marker);


  Thanks again,
  Peter

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