Creating Dynamic Labels: Finding the current time of child comp

[Robert Müller]

Hi Chris,
this should do the trick


sLayer = "";
for (i = index+1; i <= thisComp.numLayers; i++){
L = thisComp.layer(i);
if (! (L.hasVideo && L.active && L.opacity > 0)) continue;
sLayer = L.name;
sTime=timeToCurrentFormat(time-L.inPoint);
break;
}

"YOUR STUDIO NAME - " +thisComp.name+"|"+timeToCurrentFormat() + "\n"+ sLayer+"|"+sTime;

[Chris Orcfilm]

Thanks Robert!

Definitely closer; of course this assumes the child comp start Timecode is 0:00:00:00 when it may actually be related to the timecode of the source film clip file instead.

L.displayStartTime won’t work, as it is treating L as a layer instead of a (child) comp. so I came up with this:

sLayer = "";
sTime = "";
for (i = index+2; i <= thisComp.numLayers; i++){
L = thisComp.layer(i);
if (! (L.hasVideo && L.active && L.opacity > 0)) continue;
sLayer = L.name;
sTime = timeToCurrentFormat(comp(sLayer).displayStartTime+(time-L.inPoint));
break;
}

"YOUR STUDIO NAME - " +thisComp.name+"|"+timeToCurrentFormat() + "\n"+ sLayer + "|" + sTime ;

But that breaks if there is a layer that is a footage item and not a comp. For example if you have a locked cut for reference as your last layer item. Fixing it is as simple as making sure it’s also a comp but figured there must be a way to determine in an expression if a layer is a CompItem:

if(L.source instanceof compItem){
sTime = timeToCurrentFormat(comp(sLayer).displayStartTime+(time-L.inPoint));
break;
}else{
sTime = timeToCurrentFormat(time-L.inPoint);
break;
}

but it appears that is extendScript not valid in an expression.

Seeing if the layer has numLayers (L.source.numLayers), ergo a comp, also errors for me.

Is there any quick way to determine if a layer is a precomp?

So Close!!

BC Canada

[Robert Müller]

Ok this should work for you:

sLayer = "";
for (i = index+1; i <= thisComp.numLayers; i++){
L = thisComp.layer(i);
if (! (L.hasVideo && L.active && L.opacity > 0)) continue;
sLayer = L.name;
sTime=timeToCurrentFormat(time-L.startTime);
break;
}

"YOUR STUDIO NAME - " +thisComp.name+"|"+timeToCurrentFormat() + "\n"+ sLayer+"|"+sTime;