Properties panel

The Properties panel holds every setting of the selected layer, in sections that appear and disappear with the layer type: this is how to read it and what each section contains.

Open it with Window ▸ Properties. It is shown by default. The panel always follows the primary selected layer, the last one you clicked, and shows No selection when nothing is selected.

Which sections you get depends on the type. Every layer has Transform and Layer; Shape layers add Path, Fill and Stroke; Group layers add Boolean / Liquid Shape; Bone, Image and Mesh layers each add their own. Audio layers replace Transform with an Audio section.

Rows, diamonds and undo#

Every animatable row starts with a small diamond. Hollow means there is no keyframe on this parameter at the current frame; filled amber means there is one. Click it to add a key, click it again to remove that key.

Diamonds do nothing at frame 0. Frame 0 is the construction frame, the rest pose, so animation starts at frame 1.

Numeric fields are drags: press and pull sideways to scrub the value. A whole drag, from press to release, is one undo step, so scrubbing a value back and forth does not fill the History panel. Double-click one to type into it instead. It takes digits, a decimal point, a sign and the arithmetic signs, so an expression like 100/2 still works, and nothing else gets in.

Auto-key and multiple selections#

Editing a parameter that is already animated always re-keys it at the current frame. Creating a brand new key from an edit needs the matching auto-key channel to be armed, in Edit ▸ Auto-Key Channels or the Timeline's auto-key popup. Position, Rotation and Scale are armed by default; Vertices, Style, Anchor, Opacity, Blend and Layer Effects are not.

Style edits are always keyed while you are editing an action, whatever the channel arming says.

With several layers selected, style and layer settings (opacity, blend mode, fill and stroke colour, stroke width, dash) are copied to the rest of the selection inside the same undo step. Transforms are deliberately not broadcast, so a nudge moves only the primary layer.

Transform#

Select the Camera and Transform gains four more rows: Zoom, default 1.00 with a range of 0.1 to 10; Camera Depth, default 0, range 0 to 8, where 0 is flat and higher values give stronger multiplane parallax; Depth of Field, default 0, range 0 to 100; and Point of Interest, off by default. With Point of Interest off the camera turns on its own rings; with it on the camera aims at a placeable, keyframeable target, seeded straight ahead so nothing re-frames when you switch it on.

Layer#

This section is present for every type.

Path, Fill and Stroke#

Shape layers get three more sections. Path shows the vertex count and whether the contour is Closed or Open; its diamond keys the entire vertex set (points, closed state and extra contours) at the current frame.

Fill starts at None. The type combo offers None, Solid, Linear, Elliptical, Radial and Conical, and picking any of the four gradient kinds seeds sensible stops and geometry for you. The solid colour defaults to a mid grey and accepts a swatch dragged onto it from the Colour or Swatches panels. Shapes with extra contours also get a Fill overlaps switch: off is the even-odd rule, where overlaps punch holes, and on is the non-zero rule, where they stay filled.

Stroke starts at Solid, a light grey, 2.0 pixels wide. Its main rows are Width from 0 to 100 pixels, Expose Start at 0% and Expose End at 100% for write-on effects, Line Boil from 0 to 10 pixels with a Boil Step of 2 frames, Dash, Cap set to Round, Join set to Round, Position set to Center, and a Z-Order of Inherit. Turning on Brush stamps the shape's own brush tip along the centreline and reveals the tip, spacing, scatter, jitter, grain and boil controls. See Fill and stroke and Gradients for the detail.

The type-specific sections#

The bone rows are covered in Bone basics, IK and constraints and Bone dynamics.