Animate color control

[Konrad5E58]

Hello, I have a problem with color control animation - the null object that controls the fill of multiple shapes is working to change them all at once, but when I try to animate it, it's not changing them, please help

[Rick Gerard]

We need to see your expressions to figure out what went wrong. A simple pickwhip from one color to an Expression Controls/Color Controller should do the trick. All you should need to do is set keyframes for the Color Controller.

I have included a movie and a project file.

[Konrad5E58]

@Rick Gerard thank you for your reply, it's not working for me, probably because I'm trying to animate a color of a looped precomposition. This is how I looped a text and a shape below, how do I animate the color now in the main comp?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4R47Ihv_r4

[Nebojsa Savicic]

If that's the case you should reference the pre-comp in your expression. You can try using:

comp("composition where your color control is").layer("color control layer").effect("Color Control Effect").color

[Konrad5E58]

@Nebojsa Savicic that would be the expression I got after linking it to the control:
comp("composition where your color control is").layer("color control layer").effect("Color Control")("Color")

to be exact. 
I tried changing the last part like you suggested but with no result. In other thread I got a reply that since it's looped the timing should be adjusted and the code should be like:

C = comp("composition where your color control is");
ctrl = C.layer("color control layer").effect("Color Control")("Color");
L = C.layer(thisComp.name);
ctrl.valueAtTime(time + L.startTime)

But that didn't work either 😕 I can't believe it's that hard to simply change a color of a looped element in AE

[Nebojsa Savicic]

I'm not sure i understand. Would you be able to share a video of your workflow? That way i can see what's happening and troubleshoot.

[Konrad5E58]

This is showing what the problem is, the rest is done just lke in the YT video

[Rick Gerard]

You will need an expression that takes the loop into account. I don't have time to do that this morning. I think Dan Ebberts proposed a solution in another thread. Was that your thread?

[Konrad5E58]

Yes, I posted that solution here too:

C = comp("composition where your color control is");
ctrl = C.layer("color control layer").effect("Color Control")("Color");
L = C.layer(thisComp.name);
ctrl.valueAtTime(time + L.startTime)

But it did not work unfortunately 😕 I replaced comp("composition where your color control is").layer("color control layer").effect("Color Control")("Color") with that and tried to animate but still no animation

[Dan Ebberts]

My guess is that your animation happens outside the time range which is looped via the precomp time remapping. So the loop just shows the first part over and over, and never gets to the color change.

[Konrad5E58]

@Dan Ebberts yes, I think so but how can I make it work? Is is really impossible to change color of a looped animation in After effects?

[Dan Ebberts]

I guess you could apply color change effects to the precomp layer in the main comp, which you could animate independently of the time remapping.

[Konrad5E58]

That would be perfect, but how to do that? For a pre-comp layer I can only see the regular Transform properties to animate?

[Dan Ebberts · Accepted solution]

Select the precomp layer, then Effect > Color Correction > Change to Color, set the From color and animate the To color, maybe?

[Konrad5E58]

Thank you so much, I forgot to mention that I'm missing basic knowledge, that's all I tried to do, got it!