What It Does
Smart Selector lets you select any visible layer in After Effects by pointing at it in the composition viewer and clicking a button. It sees through adjustment layers, transparent areas, and bounding boxes to find the exact layer you’re looking at, even if that layer is nested several precomps deep. No more soloing layers or toggling visibility to hunt down the right element.
You create a Smart Selector null layer, activate its point controller in the Effects panel, position the crosshair over any visible layer in your comp window, and click “Find & Select Layer.” The script locates and selects that layer automatically.
Key Features
Find Layer in Precomp. When enabled, Smart Selector dives into nested precomps and selects the layer at its deepest level. Disable this checkbox to restrict selection to only the active composition.
Ignore Adjustment Layers. Check this option to skip adjustment layers and select the content beneath them. Useful when working with color corrections or effects stacks that sit on top of your actual artwork.
2D Layer Support. The tool works exclusively with 2D layers. If it detects 3D layers in your comp, it prompts you to hide them before running the selection algorithm.
Who It’s For
Motion designers working with complex nested compositions or dense layer stacks. If you’ve ever spent time clicking through a timeline trying to find which precomp contains a specific element, this solves that problem. Particularly useful for projects with heavy nesting or when working with client-supplied project files where layer organization is unclear.
Pricing
$39.99 for a single user license. A free trial is available from aescripts.
