How the tool thinks

01Layers and properties

Everything on the canvas is a layer: a rectangle, a text, an image, a video, a map, a 3D scene, an effect layer, an artboard, a group. The Layers tab lists them as a tree — a layer inside another is its child, and moves with it.

Every layer has properties: position, size, rotation, opacity, fill, and whatever its kind adds — font and spacing on text, metalness on a 3D surface. The Properties panel on the right shows them for whatever you have selected.

Two things make properties more than fields to fill in:

• A layer can grow abilities. + Add at the bottom of Properties offers drop shadows, blend modes, effects, layout, physics, Virtual Repeat, Data Repeater, a state machine and more. Each becomes a normal section in the panel.
• Every property carries a badge that tells you who is writing it. A dim ◇ means nobody — the value is yours. A yellow ◆ means keyframes. A purple ∿ means a live stream. The badge is also the button that turns a plain value into an animated or driven one. The panel's Design mode shows a badge only when it has something to report; Motion shows it on every row.

02Keyframes and sequences

Animation is a set of keyframes: "at this time, this property is this value". Between two keyframes the tool fills in the motion, and the keyframe's easing decides the feel. Only the properties you keyframe move — nothing is recorded behind your back.

Keyframes live in a sequence: a named timeline with its own duration and flags. Every scene starts with one called default; you can add more — an Intro, a Loop, a Reveal — and switch between them with the chips in the timeline. Sequences are what rules play, blend and drive, so a good name pays off every time you refer to it.

Sequences can also transition into each other, play on top of each other as layers, and be driven by something other than the clock — scroll, most often.

03Sentences

An interaction is a sentence: when something happens, then do something. You write them in the Sentences tab; hover a sentence and the layers it connects light up on the canvas.

There are only two moods, and the interface asks which one first:

"Click fades the caption in" is a moment. "Scroll moves the background" is a stream. Most of the time you don't build a sentence from scratch: recipes — Lift on hover, Reveal on scroll, Click → show target — are sentences with a name and one or two knobs.

Rules run in play mode and in the player, not while you edit — otherwise selecting a layer would also click it.

04Streams and inputs

A stream is a value that changes every frame and can be handed to any property. Bind a rectangle's X to Mouse X across artboard and it follows the pointer; bind a light's intensity to the bass band and it pulses with the music. On the way, a stream can pass through a chain of transforms — clamp, map a range, smooth, spring, delay.

Inputs are where outside values enter the scene. The Audio button in the top bar connects the microphone and analyzes the music on the timeline; scroll and the mouse need no setup. Variables are named values of your own that sentences can read and write — and the ones you mark as exposed can be set from a web page that embeds the scene.

05Artboards and play

An artboard is a frame with a size. Layers drawn inside it belong to it, and it is the unit of everything that leaves the editor: Play runs one artboard on the canvas, Preview opens one in the player, Export records one as video — and a PNG or SVG export takes the selected layer, or the page when nothing is selected.

Artboards are also how a scene scrolls — an artboard with content taller than its frame gets a scroll range, and scroll sections divide that range into named stretches — and how components work: turn a frame into a main component and place instances of it that follow every edit.

Three ways to see a scene run, from quickest to most faithful:

06The words at a glance