What would be the practical point of it? In After Effects, null objects can control things that are parented to it and not show up on export. You can use a layer as a reference to replicate a similar look if it's a guide layer and it not show up on export. What's stopping you from enabling or disabling an item in the timeline?
So I don't have to keep hiding and showing the track? I'm not sure I'm being clear. In After Effects, you can have several guide layers, for example, an overlay of social media frames, that are visible when working, but on export are not included. It's really handy if you have several guide layers.
I find it frustrating when I've forgotten to hie the guide track and it's on the export. Sure, I could try and not forget, but that's not always straght forward when you're wokring late on a deadline with endless client amends
And I understand that with being forced to have to do social media stuff for Black Friday this week. Only issue I see with that is having to sacrifice an entire track for a layer who's purpose is to allow to me line up graphics for social. Maybe the smart play would be to make it an overlay setting in Overlays that is visible during the editing phase but doesn't show up on export. We could import a PNG of the settings we need to hit or it comes with popular settings from Facebook, IG, Tiktok and more.
In the same way that having Adjustment Layers in both After Effects and Premiere Pro is very helpful, it would be helpful to have Guide Layers in both as well; however, I'm thinking that it would need to be a "Guide Clip" availalbe under Clip > Set Guide Clip to toggle it on and off. When enabled, the Clip would be excluded from export in the same way Guide Layers are excluded from renders in AE.
This would be very helful for anyone that has to reference safe areas from a style guide on a regular basis for placing logos or watermarks as well as having a placeholder that never renders on accident. It's also helpful for notes.
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