Unique ID for effect instance

Report · Dec 07, 2020

Hi @shachar carmi I have a questions regarding a post of yours from this link..

https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects/how-to-get-aegp-effectrefh-within-the-custom-effect/m-p...

what if you have to copies of the same effect on one layer?
how do you tell them apart?
it's up to you to create a unique identifier.
either a hidden slider holding a random value that's unique to each instance,

I need to identify if a user has copied and pasted my effect. This will duplicate all the effect data.

If I create a hidden param - and set the initial value using rand(time()) using ParamsSetup - will that guarantee the unique value per effect instance ?

I will never change this value but I will place this value inside sequence data. So if anytime the unique ID inside sequence data does not match the value of the hidden param, I know the sequence has been copy pasted.

Report · Dec 07, 2020

I mean calling srand(time(NULL)) from main and then seeding the hidden param using rand()