There are sometimes a few drawbacks to having a layered / timeline system, and one of those issues comes up time and time again when there are thousands of layers for a composition. In After Effects, it takes some time to affect something on discontiguous layers.
This script locks or unlocks all non-selected layers or masks (based on current selection) with one click
Thankfully, turning on and off layer attributes such as visibility and solo are easily done to multiple selections. Locking however tends to drop the selection in Ae for some reason. this makes it a bit of kludge to work with- Not to mention that sometimes it is probably easier to select the layers you don’t want to lock. Typically a composition has many layers and it is just easier to select the layers that you don’t want to lock to save you some time.
SoloLock for After Effects
This is where the SoloLock Script comes in. SoloLock for After Effects offers a super simple panel that can be docked into the Ae interface that only has two buttons. Lock And Unlock.
SoloLock for After Effects will actually lock all unselected layers. This makes it much easier to lock many layers at once. Select on or as many layers as you like, click the lock button and it will lock everything else in the composition.
The script will also do the same thing for masks. If you have mask attributes selected in the timeline, you can lock or unlock masks instead of layers. SoloLock will even allow you to select masks in different layers.
Availability
SoloLock for After Effects is available on aescripts + aeplugins, as a name your own price tool, with a suggestion of $2.99. Check out the SoloLock Script for After Effects here for more information and a download.
Fake Pilot
Would be even better doing this with a toggle shortcut. Is that possible?