Is there expression or function that reads what type of layer, a layer is?

Adobe After Effects Expressions

Is there expression or function that reads what type of layer, a layer is?

Posted by Auric johnson on October 1, 2020 at 6:34 pm

for instance if I were to type the expression/function (lets say its called .type) into a text layer source text, the text would say “text layer” if I were to have a comp above that text layer and typed the expression with an index-1 the text would say “comp”.

I want to write an if statement that executes one function if there is a text layer above and another if there is a comp.

something like
if(thisComp.layer(index-1).type==”comp”)”its a comp”;”it can be text”

so yea just wondering if such a function exists

thanks,

Auric johnson replied 5 years, 7 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
3 Replies

Dan Ebberts

October 1, 2020 at 7:19 pm

Not exactly, but you could do something like this to test for a text layer:

try{
	thisComp.layer(index-1).text.sourceText;
	isText = true;
}catch (e){
	isText = false;
}

and something like this to test for a comp layer:

try{
	isComp = thisComp.layer(index-1).source instanceof Comp;
}catch (e){
	isComp = false;
}

Filip Vandueren

October 1, 2020 at 7:23 pm

I don’t think so actually.

Maybe it’s best to test for properties that only certain types of layers have ?

l=thisComp.layer(2);
layerKind="unkown";
if (l.text) layerKind = "Text";
else if (l.source) {
	layerKind = "Footage";
	if (l.source.duration ==0) {
	    layerKind = "Solid/Null/Still";
	}
	if (l.source.numLayers!=undefined) layerKind = "Composition"
} else if (l.cameraOption) layerKind = "Camera"
else if (l.lightOption) layerKind = "Light"
layerKind

Can’t find a way to discern between Solids, Nulls and Stills though…

Auric johnson
October 2, 2020 at 9:00 am

Hey Thanks for this! I used the first one and it works like a charm

a=thisComp.layer(index-1).sourceRectAtTime();

t=a.top;

h=a.height;

som = t+h/2;

p=thisComp.layer(index-1).position[1]

fs=text.sourceText.style.fontSize

y1 = (p+h+fs);

y2 = (p+som/2);

x =thisComp.layer(index-1).position[0]

try{

thisComp.layer(index-1).text.sourceText;

isText = [x,y1];

}catch (e){

isText = [x,y2];

}

This basically will space out any text layers below the above text layer by the font size but because the title its own comp I needed to calculate the spacing differently, seems to work cheers

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