Layers

Last updated 16 September 2026

Compositions hold an ordered stack of layers. Layers draw from the bottom up, meaning the top layer composites over everything below it.

Add a layer

Drag an asset from the Project panel into the timeline.
Or choose Layer ▸ New and pick the type of layer you need.

The layer kinds

Kind	What it is
Footage layer	One footage item as a source. Supports Retime.
Solid layer	A flat colour. Often used as a base for effects.
Precomp layer	Another composition, used as a layer. Supports Retime. A node graph placed this way carries its Inputs as a section of the layer’s own controls.
Text layer	Editable text.
Shape layer	Vector shapes with fills and strokes.
Sequence layer	Similar to Footage, but allows cutting within one layer.
Adjustment layer	A comp-sized layer with nothing of its own to show, born with the adjustment switch on.
Null layer	Invisible and transform-only. Used to drive other layers.
Camera layer	A 3D viewpoint. Affects layers with the 3D switch on.
Light layer	A source of light: Point, Spot or Area. Shades layers with Accepts lights on.
Audio layer	Sound with no picture. Made by placing an audio file, or by Add audio only on an item that has a picture too.

Order and selection

Drag a layer up or down to change ordering. Select several layers to apply commands to all of them at once.

Selection applies across the application. For instance, picking a layer in the Viewer selects it everywhere.

Copy and paste

Edit ▸ Cut / Copy / Paste can copy whole layers if selected and can be pasted into other compositions as well. A copied layer retains all information: transform, keyframes, masks, paint, effects, switches, markers, and retime values.

By default a pasted layer starts at the playhead. To paste at the time it was copied from instead, turn on Paste layers at their original time in Settings ▸ Timeline. A parent or matte reference is retained only if the target composition still contains that layer.

Switches

Each layer has two runs of switches in the Timeline outline.

The switches column holds what the Timeline keeps about a layer: visibility, mute, solo, lock, shy, and guide. The modes column holds how the layer is rendered: collapse, flow, disable effects, motion blur, 3D, and adjustment.

A row shows only the switches its layer can use. An Audio layer has no visibility switch, and a layer that can never be heard has no mute switch. Guide is drawn on every row.

The motion blur switch blurs a layer from its own animated transform. The Motion blur effect is different, see Effects.

Adjustment

Adjustment is a switch, on any layer that draws something — turn it on and the layer’s effect stack runs on the composite of everything below it. Effects apply only to the area the layer covers.

Layer ▸ New ▸ Adjustment makes a comp-sized layer with the switch already on. Turn the switch off on one of those and it becomes an ordinary white solid.

Camera, Light, Null and Audio layers cannot be adjustment layers, and the cell is left out on their rows.

Guide layers

Guide marks a layer for reference only. The Viewer draws it like any other layer and no exported file contains it, picture or sound.

Guide beats solo. A locked layer refuses the guide switch.

The export dialogue can be told to write guide layers anyway.

Light layers

Layer ▸ New offers three: a Point light, a bare bulb with no extent; a Spot light, a cone aimed by the layer’s own rotation; and an Area light, a rectangle which starts at a tenth of the composition.

A light is placed by its ordinary transform, so it animates and parents like anything else. Which layers it shades is per layer: Accepts lights, on the layer’s right-click menu in the Timeline, on by default.

Parenting

Parent a layer to another and it inherits the parent’s transform and can apply its own on top of them.