Drawing and layers

Everything you draw is a layer. A layer is one shape with a fill, a stroke and a transform. This page covers making shapes, changing how they look, and organising them.

See also: Editor guide, Animating, Importing artwork.

Tools

The tools are on the left. Press the letter to switch.

Icon	Tool	Key	Use
	Select	V	Click to select, drag to move, drag the handles to scale and rotate
	Node edit	A	Move the points and handles of a path
	Hand	H	Drag to pan. Holding Space does the same with any tool
	Zoom	Z	Click to zoom in, Alt + click to zoom out
	Artboard	C	Drag the artboard's edges to resize or crop it
	Pen	P	Click for corners, drag for curves
	Pencil	N	Draw freehand. The stroke can become a motion path
	Rectangle	R	Drag to draw
	Ellipse	E	Drag to draw
	Polygon	G	Drag to draw. Set the number of sides in the control bar
	Star	S	Drag to draw. Set points and inner radius in the control bar
	Line	L	Drag from start to end
	Motion path	M	Edit, extend and reshape a layer's motion path

The tools appear in this order, top to bottom. Under them are the fill and stroke swatches.

The control bar under the menu shows the options for the current tool.

Shapes

1. Pick Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Star or Line.
2. Drag on the canvas.
3. The new layer uses the fill and stroke shown in the swatches at the bottom of the tools.

Object > Shape > New Rectangle and New Ellipse place a shape in the middle of the artboard.

Rectangles have a corner radius (Rad) in the Properties panel.

Rectangles and ellipses stay editable as shapes. To move their individual points, convert them first: Object > Shape > Convert to Path, or Object > Expand….

The pen

1. Press P.
2. Click to place a corner point. Click and drag to place a smooth point and pull out its handles.
3. Click the first point to close the shape. Or press Enter, or double-click, to finish an open path.
4. Backspace removes the last point while drawing.

The pencil

Press N and draw. The line is smoothed when you let go. Smooth in the control bar sets how much: higher gives fewer points and a smoother curve.

With a layer selected, the control bar offers to use the stroke as that layer's motion path instead of a new layer. The layer then travels the path at the speed you drew it. See Animating.

Editing points

1. Select a path layer.
2. Press A, or Object > Path > Edit Points.
3. Drag a point to move it. Drag a handle to bend the curve.

The Path panel and Object > Path have the rest:

If a path is animated (it has shape keyframes), moving points writes keyframes, and adding or removing points is disabled. Every keyframe of a morph needs the same number of points.

Selecting

Locked and hidden layers cannot be selected on the canvas.

Moving, scaling, rotating

• Move: drag the layer. Arrow keys nudge 1 px; with Shift, 10 px.
• Scale: drag a handle of the bounding box. Hold Shift to keep proportions.
• Rotate: drag just outside a corner handle. Hold Shift for 15° steps.
• Constrain: Shift while dragging keeps the move on one axis. Alt turns snapping off for that drag.
• Exact numbers: type in the Properties panel: X, Y, W, H, SX, SY (scale in percent), Rot, Op (opacity).

Object > Transform has Flip Horizontal, Flip Vertical, Rotate 90° either way, Rotate 180°, and Reset Scale and Rotation.

Object > Make Pixel Perfect rounds a layer's position and size to whole pixels.

If the bounding box is in the way, hide it with View > Hide Bounding Box.

Colour

Fill and stroke swatches

Two swatches sit at the bottom of the tools: fill in front, stroke behind.

• With something selected they show, and change, the selection's colours.
• With nothing selected they set the colours for the next shape you draw.
• X swaps fill and stroke. D resets them to the defaults.

The same swatches are in the control bar and the Properties panel.

The colour picker

Click a swatch to open the picker.

• Drag in the square for shade, the Hue bar for colour, the Opacity bar for transparency.
• Type a hex value.
• Swatches has a starter palette. Recent keeps the colours you used last.
• None removes the fill or the stroke.
• The eyedropper picks a colour from the canvas or anywhere on screen. It needs a Chromium browser.

A colour change applies to every selected layer.

Gradients

In the fill section of Properties, choose Solid, Linear gradient or Radial gradient.

• Click a stop to change its colour. Remove a stop with its remove button.
• Angle turns a linear gradient. Radius sizes a radial one.

Strokes

In the stroke section of Properties:

Dashes are not used while a stroke is trimmed.

Blend mode

Object > Blend Mode sets how a layer mixes with what is under it: Normal, Multiply, Screen, Overlay and the rest.

Layers

The Layers panel lists layers top to bottom, front to back. The timeline shows the same list.

Arrange

Object > Arrange, or the keys:

Align

Object > Align, or the six align buttons in Properties: Left, Horizontal Center, Right, Top, Vertical Center, Bottom. Layers align to the artboard.

Lock and hide from the menu

Parenting

A layer can follow another layer. The child inherits the parent's position, rotation and scale. Opacity is not inherited.

1. Select the child.
2. In Properties, under Layer, choose a Parent.

Move, rotate or scale the parent and the child goes with it. Use it for an arm on a body, eyes on a face, or a group that should move as one. Set the parent back to None to release it; the child stays where it is.

The artboard

The artboard is the frame that gets exported.

In the Document panel, Crop can wrap the artwork of the Current frame or of the Whole animation, with optional padding (Pad). The nine-point grid picks which part stays in place when the size changes.

Artwork outside the artboard stays visible while you edit and is clipped in every export. View > Fit All in Window shows it all.