Navigating 3D

The camera tool

Press C to cycle the camera tool:

Unified → Orbit → Pan (Track XY) → Dolly

In Unified, left-drag orbits, middle-drag pans and right-drag dollies. The other three put that one move on the left button. A toast tells you which mode you just entered. Esc, or picking V, exits. The toolbar’s 3D cluster offers the same modes from a menu.

Alt + drag also orbits, pans and dollies without switching tools.

The camera tool is only live when the composition has a camera and at least one 3D layer. Otherwise a bare C does nothing, harmlessly.

Gizmos

The 3D gizmo overlay draws:

Gizmo	For
Universal	Move, rotate and scale from one widget
Position	Translation along the axes
Scale	Per-axis scaling
Rotation	Per-axis rotation rings

The gizmo is sized in screen space, so it stays usable whether the layer is right in front of the camera or far away.

Cameras and spot lights get handles of their own: a draggable position handle and a separately draggable Point of Interest crosshair. See Cameras.

Since 1.0 the gizmo works on cameras and lights too. Its position arrows and planes move the camera or light and its point of interest together, so the shot keeps its aim — drag the Point of Interest alone to re-aim. The rotation rings write a camera’s Orientation, and the Z ring turns a spot or parallel light that has no target. Scale handles do nothing on them, since they have no size.

Alongside it the overlay draws dimensional guides: a pink trajectory line for animated position, drop lines to the ground plane, and a live callout badge with the current values.

Ground grid at Y = 0, so you can tell up from down. Since 1.0 the engine draws it, in the viewport only — it never reaches an export. It is depth-tested against the 3D scene, so layers in front of it hide it; its spacing adapts to the camera’s distance in 1, 2, 5 steps; it fades with distance; and its X axis is red and its Z axis blue. Toggle it with the 3D ground plane button.
Axis widget at the bottom left, showing world X/Y/Z projected through the current camera. It is screen-fixed and appears whenever the composition has any 3D layer.

The Layers panel has a 3D view button (the cube) that lists only cameras, lights and 3D layers, and marks the camera the shot is going through as Active.

View switching

Key	View
`1`	Active Camera
`2`	The last custom view used

Orthographic inspection views — top, front, left and the rest — are available from the view options in the viewport header. View → 3D View → Look at Selected Layers / Look at All Layers aims the current view at the selection or the whole scene, and View → Camera Bookmarks saves and recalls up to nine views.

Every view paints the composition

Front, Back, Left, Right, Top, Bottom and the three custom views all fill the composition rect against the pasteboard, exactly as Active Camera does. Only the camera projecting layers into that frame changes between views — which is how After Effects renders every view into the same comp-sized frame.

An orthographic view therefore shows two things, deliberately: the filled rect, which is the frame that will be exported, and the projected dashed quad from the geometry overlay, which is where the composition’s z = 0 plane sits, seen edge-on. Two different facts, both true.

Extended Viewer

After Effects’ Extended Viewer option is a checkbox in the toolbar’s 3D view menu: Extended Viewer — draw layers outside the comp frame. With it on, the axis and custom views — and Active Camera while Draft 3D is on — draw everything, including what lies outside the composition frame, with the frame’s outline on top, so a side view shows where everything sits rather than a window cut out of black. A final-quality Active Camera view keeps the frame, because through the shot camera the frame is the output. It is a viewer setting; it never changes the project or an export.

Multi-view layouts

1 View / 2 Views / 4 Views.

In 2-up the interactive stage takes the left half; in 4-up the top-left quadrant. The other cells are view-only panes showing the same composition through a different view. Each pane is a viewport of its own in the engine, rendered through that pane’s view — not a copy of the main picture.

The working pattern: keep the Active Camera in the interactive cell, and a top or side orthographic view beside it. Position in the camera view, verify actual depth in the orthographic one — perspective lies about Z, orthographic does not.

Draft 3D

Toggle it while blocking out a scene for faster interaction. Since 1.0 it keeps an ambient and a key light, so the scene still reads as lit, and drops shadows, ambient occlusion, depth of field and reflections. It affects the viewport only; the export always renders at full fidelity.

Focus mode

Entering a group or a UI-kit component engages Focus Mode, and the FocusBreadcrumb appears over the canvas: Main › Scene 2 › Logo. Click a crumb to jump to that level, or press Esc to step up one. While you are inside, the layers outside what you entered are dimmed in the viewport. The dimming is a viewport aid only — it never reaches an export.