The canvas
The canvas is the center of the editor, where you arrange your layers. It looks flat, like a design tool, but every layer sits at a real depth in 3D. That depth is what the camera moves through later.
Flat to work in, 3D underneath
You place and edit layers face on, the way you would in any design tool. Each one also has a depth and can be tilted. Nothing looks 3D until you tilt a layer or move the camera. Spreading layers apart in depth is what makes the near ones slide past the far ones as the camera moves, and that is the difference between a flat slide and a shot that looks filmed.
Move around
- Scroll to pan. Cmd-scroll or pinch to zoom.
- Hold Space, or press H for the Hand tool, to grab and drag the view.
- The bright frame in the middle is what exports. Everything around it is off-screen room to work.
The tools
The toolbar floats at the bottom of the canvas.
- Select (V): the default. Drag to move a layer. A tilted one slides along its own plane and stays in its row; a flat one moves across the canvas.
- Move (G): drag in plain screen space, ignoring tilt. Use it for precise or edge-on moves.
- Tilt (Y): drag a layer to angle it in 3D.
- Hand (H): drag to pan.
- Text (T), Image (I), and Shapes (R rectangle, O ellipse, L line): drop new layers. Click to place a default size, or drag to size it.
Add layers
- Drop in an image or video. It lands flat and fits the frame.
- Paste from Figma. Use Copy as SVG in Figma, and the text, shapes, and layers arrive separate and editable, not one flat picture.
- Draw text or a shape straight on the canvas.
Real layers are what let the camera travel through a scene, so paste from Figma rather than dropping a flat picture when you have the choice.
Line things up
- Arrow keys nudge the selection. Hold Shift for bigger steps.
- Layers snap to each other and to the frame as you drag.
]and[move a layer forward and back. Add Cmd to send it all the way to the front or back.- Hold Cmd and click to grab a layer sitting behind another.
Turn edits into animation
Most edits change how a layer sits when nothing is playing. Switch on the Animate tool (Shift A) and the same edits become motion instead: each one is saved as a block that ends at the playhead, the line that marks the current frame. Outside that tool, nothing records.