Selecting Layers in the viewer?

[Dave Johnson]

Yes … that’s possible and I believe it’s that way by default so you should be able to just do it. With 345 layers it seems very likely many of them are overlapping so that’ll make it hard to know which one you’re selecting.

You’ll want to be careful working that was since it’s very easy to move or otherwise adjust layers without realizing it. It might help to turn on the show layer handles in the viewer options (little triangle at top right of comp viewer).

[Nicholas Dean]

Thank you, I think you are right. I really wish that we had put some more though into this before we jumped in.

If you can think of any other ways or techniques to identify layers in this multitude please let me know.

thanks.

[Dave Johnson]

Especially in AE projects with hundreds of layers, grouping layers, pre-composing and pre-rendering as much as possible makes life much easier. And, by all means, save and back up your work often.

You could re-name and re-link files. Or, just rename the layers within the AE timeline without changing file names or re-linking. Both are time-consuming and tedious, and there are pros and cons to each, but either will make working with them in AE faster/easier.

[Nicholas Dean] “I really wish that we had put some more though into this before we jumped in”

I consider what you allude to there to be the single most valuable thing I learned in the early parts of my career … for both the shoot and edit stages of any production, thoughtful planning up front always saves tons of time, money and headaches on the back end … and garners better results.

[Todd Kopriva]

I’ve found that Zorro is wonderful for selecting, showing, and isolating layers in a complex composition.

———————————————————————————————————
Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Technical Support for professional video software
After Effects Help & Support
Premiere Pro Help & Support
———————————————————————————————————