OmniMotion®
TutorialDraft

Your first scene in ten minutes

Draw an artboard and a card, animate it, make it react to a click, preview it in the player.

In ten minutes you will draw a card, make it slide into view, make a click reveal a caption, and watch the whole thing run in the player. Every step names the exact control and its shortcut. You don't need to have read anything first — the interface tour in The interface is there when you want the full map.

01Create a project

Open the tool and you land on the Projects screen. Click + New project.

The editor opens on an empty canvas with a three-step hint in the middle: draw a card → add a sentence in Sentences → pick a verb. That is exactly what you are about to do, plus animation on the way.

The empty editor: the three-step welcome hint in the center of the canvas
Your project is already being saved. Every few seconds after a change, the editor writes the scene into the project you just created, and the chip in the top bar reads Saved. You never lose a new project by closing the tab. (Saving, autosave & recovery has the details.)

02Draw an artboard

Press A to pick the Artboard tool, then click once on the canvas. You get a default 800×600 frame.

In the Layers tab on the left, double-click the artboard's name and call it Hero. Press Enter.

An 800×600 artboard on the canvas, renamed Hero in the layer tree

03Draw the card

Press R for Rectangle and drag a rectangle inside the artboard — something like 320×200, a little left of center. Because you drew it inside the artboard, it nests under Hero in the layer tree.

With the rectangle selected, look at Properties on the right:

  • In Appearance, click the fill swatch and pick a color you like.
  • Still in Appearance, type 16 in one of the Corners fields — all four corners follow until you tick Each corner.

Double-click the layer's name in the tree and rename it Card.

A rounded card inside the artboard; Properties open on Appearance with a fill color and corners at 16

04Add a hidden caption

Press T for Text, click just below the card and type Hello from OmniMotion. Press Esc to finish typing.

In Properties, set Opacity to 0 in the Appearance section — the caption disappears, which is what we want: a click is going to bring it back. Rename the layer Caption.

An invisible layer is easy to lose. Select it from the Layers tab whenever you need it — the tree always lists it.

05Animate the card in

The bottom strip is the Timeline. The animation is two poses: where the card starts, and where it ends.

  1. Select Card. At the top of Properties, switch Design to Motion — that shows the keyframe badge on every row. Make sure the playhead is at the start — press Home to be sure.
  2. In Properties, set Opacity to 0 and add 40 to Y (so the card sits a little lower than where it should end up).
  3. Click the small ◆ badge next to Opacity, and the one next to Y. Each click records a keyframe at the playhead; the badge turns yellow.
  4. Move the playhead to about 1 second — click on the timeline ruler, or scrub it with the mouse wheel.
  5. Set Opacity back to 1 and Y back to its original value. Click both badges again.

Press Space. The card rises and fades in; press Space again to stop.

Two animated rows, Opacity and Y, each with keyframes at 0s and 1s in the dopesheet

For a nicer feel, right-click the first keyframe on the Y row and pick one of the Out easings. A keyframe's easing shapes the segment that leaves it, so the first keyframe is the one to change.

Right-clicking a keyframe opens the easing list

06Make a click reveal the caption

Now the part the welcome hint promised. Open the Sentences tab in the right rail and select Card. Click + Interaction and, under Between layers, choose Click → show target. A second list asks which layer is the target — pick Caption. It is applied at once, with sensible defaults.

The interaction now exists as one sentence in the list. Hover that row and both layers are outlined on the canvas with a line between them, so you can see what it connects without leaving the list.

Add a second one the same way: with Card still selected, + Interaction → Grow on hover. It is applied with its defaults (you can change them in the rule that opens). Your card has two behaviors.

The Sentences tab listing the click rule and the two hover rules created by Grow on hover

07Try it on the canvas

Interactions don't run while you edit — clicking a layer selects it. To try them, select the Hero artboard and click Play in the small pill above it. (Simulate in the top bar, Shift+P, runs them while you keep editing instead.)

A banner says ▶ Playing — Hero. Hover the card: it grows. Click it: the caption fades in. Press Esc to come back to editing.

Play mode: the banner at the top, the card grown under the pointer, the caption visible after a click

08Preview in the player

Play mode runs one artboard inside the editor. Preview in the top bar opens your scene in the player, in a new tab, exactly as a visitor would get it: the sequence plays from the start, then hovers and clicks work.

Click Preview. The card animates in, and the click reveals the caption.

If nothing opens, your browser blocked the pop-up — the editor tells you so in a toast. Allow pop-ups for the site and click Preview again.
The player tab: the Hero artboard filling the window, the card mid-animation

09Save the project

Your project is already stored in this browser. Ctrl+S (or Save) writes it there — no download. To have a file you can keep, send, or open elsewhere, use Export → Project file (.omni). Click the project name in the top bar to change it first; that name becomes the file name.

10What you built

  • An artboard — the frame you design in and the thing you preview.
  • A card with a fill and a corner radius — a layer with properties.
  • Two keyframes on two properties — an animation on the default sequence.
  • A sentence: when Card is clicked, show Caption — made from a recipe.
  • A second sentence from Grow on hover, which wrote both the hover and the hover-end for you.

Every one of those is a door into a bigger room. How the tool thinks names the ideas; Drawing & layers, Timeline & animation and Interactions teach each area in full.

11Shortcut recap

ToolsA artboard · R rectangle · T text · Esc finish typing / back to Select
TimelineHome start · Space play / pause · ◆ badge = keyframe at playhead
Interactions+ Interaction in Sentences · hover a sentence to see what it connects
Trying itPlay pill on the artboard · Esc exit · Simulate (Shift+P) · Preview in the top bar
FileCtrl+S save this project · Export → Project file (.omni) for a file you can send
Checked against the tool on 2026-09-30.