How to change a property in multiple layers

[reindeer4]

I have twenty lights in a composition. If I Shift click on the first and last layers, I can change all of their colors at once and animate this property over time.

Is there a way I can now select all of the color keyframes for each layer without manually Shift Selecting Color in each layer?

(I'm aware that I could link all of these to a master layer and use an expression to control this - but I wanted to know if there was also a way to quickly select all the keyframes for a given property on multiple layers or if that's not a feature of the program.

Thanks.

[foughtthelaw · Accepted solution]

the quick manual way to do this would be to select all the lights in your timeline. then in the timeline search bar search for "color" to reveal the color property for each of the lights. then hit CMD+ALT+A (ctrl+alt+a on pc) to select all visible properties.

the one gotcha to this is that it only works for properties that are visible in the timeline. so if there's more than you can see in your layout hit the ` key to expand your timeline, select the properties, then hit ` again to colapse down so you can see what you're doing.

if you have more than that I'd look into linking lights of a specific color to an expression control on a null or scripting to select the properties you want.

[reindeer4]

Thanks @foughtthelaw; that's just what i was looking for.

(and I did set up a master controller layer after posting, but wanted to see what other techniques were available - so thanks for explaining!

[Rick Gerard]

The U key reveals all keyframes for all selected layers. If no layers are selected u reveals all keyframes for all layers. UU (u key twice) reveals all modified properties of selected layers or all layers of no layer is selected.

A search for color or light would narrow down the number of layers but pressing the u key will clear the search and show all layers. What you want to do to select all light layers with color keyframes is deselect all layers, press the u key, then type color and all of layers with color and keyframes will be shown. You can then drag a selection around the keyframes you want to select and edit all at once or use Alt/Option + Cmnd/Ctrl + a to select all visible properties in the timeline. Double-clicking any colo keyframer will allow you to edit all highlighted keyframes at once.

[reindeer4]

Thanks @RickGerard - that's helpful too - have made a note of it.