Compositions and layers

What is in it

Layer types

Shape, text, image, video, audio, SVG, Lottie, nested comp, camera, light, null, adjustment, particles, and glTF 3D models.

Pre-composition

Nest and instance a comp more than once, with time remapping. Collapse transformations to let it meet the host's space.

Parenting

Loop-safe. Re-parenting compensates the local transform, so the layer does not move when you attach it.

Adjustment layers

Affect everything beneath them, and break the 3D stack the same way a 2D layer does.

Guide layers

Visible while you work, excluded from every export.

Blend modes

All 38 of After Effects' modes, Dissolve and Dancing Dissolve included.

Track mattes

Alpha and luma, invertible, and decoupled from stacking order so the matte need not sit directly above its target.

MasksLimited

Bezier paths, 7 modes, and a mask can scope a single effect rather than the whole layer. The document can store a per-vertex feather, but the engine draws the uniform feather only and reports the variable one as unsupported.

Layer menu conversions

Create Shapes from Text and Create Masks from Text use the font's own outlines. Convert to Editable Shapes and Editable Text for SVG, Separate a shape layer into its parts, and Uncompose a precomp back into its layers. Uncompose refuses when the picture depends on the composing (effects, masks, 3D, collapse, retiming).