Expression for displaying currently displayed footage name?

[Dan Ebberts]

Try this source text expression:

txt = "";
for (j = 1; j <= thisComp.numLayers; j++){
  if (j == index) continue;
  L = thisComp.layer(j);
  if (! (L.hasVideo && L.active)) continue;
  if (time >= L.inPoint && time < L.outPoint){
    try{
      txt = L.source.name;
    }catch(err1){
      txt = L.name
    }
    break;
  }
}
txt

Dan

[Dominic Tremblay]

Wow…Thank you…

[Steve Freebairn]

Dan Ebberts has to be the very best expressions person in the world. He responds to everyone and has his own great site that has taught me a ton, you should check it out. http://www.motionscript.com/

[Steve Roberts]

I save all of Dan’s posts.

Just in case. 🙂

Steve

[Joel Corkin]

Sorry, I am trying to get this to work, but am having some trouble. Don’t I just need to paste Dan’s code into an expression for the SourceText property of a text layer?

[Joel Corkin]

I figured out that this code only works if you have one text layer in your comp. Anyone know how it could work while other text layers are present? Dan?

Thanks!

[Joel Corkin]

Perhaps there is some way tell AE to do either of the following in the case of wanting to use additional text layers in your comp:

– Disregard any other layer if it is a text layer
or
– Disregard all layers above the layer to which you are applying this particular sourceText code.

Any thoughts?

[Joel Corkin]

Okay, first, sorry for so many follow-up posts, but I figured out a way to make this work while disregarding certain other layers, like other text layers that span the whole comp for example.

I added &&!L.hasParent into Dan’s code and then created a null layer with visibility off, which I used as the parent to whatever other text layers I want to add to the comp. This way the other text layers can span the comp without interfering with the footage name display.

The modification of Dan’s code is below. If anyone has a better way than this, please post it.

txt = “”;
for (j = 1; j <= thisComp.numLayers; j++){ if (j == index) continue; L = thisComp.layer(j); if (! (L.hasVideo && L.active &&!L.hasParent)) continue; if (time >= L.inPoint && time < L.outPoint){ try{ txt = L.source.name; }catch(err1){ txt = L.name } break; } } txt;

[Amy Young]

Small update to show the active layer’s number, rather than source name . (I have a clip that appears in a few places on different layers, so having the layer number is more useful for me in one case…) Thanks Dan!

txt = "";
for (j = 1; j <= thisComp.numLayers; j++){
if (j == index) continue;
L = thisComp.layer(j);
if (! (L.hasVideo && L.active)) continue;
if (time >= L.inPoint && time < L.outPoint){
try{
txt = "Layer " + L.index;
}catch(err1){
txt = L.name // L.source.name
}
break;
}
}
txt

[Nate Vander plas]

This is cool! Makes me think Adobe should include options for HUD elements like this by default, similar to Cinema 4D. This expression would be much more useful to me if it could ignore certain types of layers, such as nulls, solids, lights, cameras, etc. Maybe it could work with checkboxes to only show the types you have checked?