To answer my own initial question:
You can use the keyframe_insert-method of the StructRNA you want to animate to insert a keyframe for the current frame. An example:
sphere = bpy.data.objects['Sphere']
scene = bpy.data.scenes[0]
def layer_set(frame, layer):
# Move to the correct frame
scene.set_frame(frame)
# Set the objects visibility in the layer
sphere.layers[1] = layer
# Set the current status of the layers property at index 1 as a keyframe
# for properties that have no index, the 2nd argument can be omitted
sphere.keyframe_insert("layers", 1)
layer_set(1, False)
layer_set(10, True)
layer_set(20, False)
Test-dr, I am still interested in this ‘Restrict Render ’ property, as it seems to be the proper way to do this kind of animation.