Pulling Comp or Layer Metadata for use in expressions

[ericsten]

So I know we can pull thisComp.name etc, however is there a way to pull metadata properties such as Comments or Label color?

I was hoping to be able to recolor reference shapes across multiple sub comps by Comment field for easy visual reference of grouping.

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

Expressions cannot access project data nor footage source items' metadata and that is that. You can't even read the layer label color. The only kind of "metadata" usable by expressions are markers and their comments. So if it's realyl important to you, you would have to set up some sort of master comp containing all your layers and add that info via markers to be then referenced elsewhere, though it would necessitate to include text parsing code in your expressions, which is another matter. whichever way you turn it, it's a lose-lose situation.

Mylenium

[ericsten]

Using markers with text-parsing or sliders with input values is my current method of denoting group pairing. Would just be nice to be able to reference metadata as expression variables. Thanks for the response!

- Eric