Introducing the Properties Panel in After Effects (Beta)

[Christine Goldby]

In our ongoing aim to make your After Effects experience better, we are excited to introduce the new Properties Panel to the beta today (22.2.0x29).

As always, we look forward to hearing your feedback here in the forum. Your responses help us know when features are ready to ship or if they need more polishing. Please speak up and help us build the product you need!

Properties Panel

Create motion graphics quicker and with greater ease inside the new Properties Panel. Cut down on your twirl-time by quickly accessing the properties you need the most. New designers coming from Photoshop and Illustrator should feel right at home with controls available where you are used to finding them.

This first build brings an easier way of working with Shape layers. Select a shape either in the composition window or timeline, and you will find its properties shown in the panel for easy access. If you change a value in the panel, it will change in the timeline as well. Select multiple shapes on a layer to change their values at the same time.

Alongside the Shape properties, we’ve also added basic layer transforms for Anchor Point, Position, Scale, Rotation and Opacity. The values can be modified for multiple layers at once when selected together.

How to Use Properties Panel
Select a Shape layer in the timeline, or in the composition window double-click to select a specific shape within that layer. The Properties Panel, which will be at the upper right side of the panel stack, will display the properties for your selection. You may need to extend the bottom edge of the panel down to see all the controls, or you can scroll down instead.

• Layer Transform controls at the top of the panel control the layer as a whole.
• Layer Contents lists any selected Shape layer(s) plus all the Shapes included within them.
• Shape Properties gives you quick access to the properties you need most frequently.
• Shape Transform gives the Anchor Point, Position, Scale, Rotation and Opacity controls specific to the selected shape.

Tips

• Double-click on any shape in the composition window to show its controls in the Properties Panel.
• Double-click on any property in the Properties Panel to reveal it within the timeline.
• The panel can be moved to wherever you find it most useful. Let us know where you end up using it most often!

For a longer introduction check out the attached video below.

Have fun with it!

Known Issues and Workarounds

• If you have multiple fills/strokes within a single shape, the fill/stroke does not show up in the Properties Panel. You can still edit these items within the timeline window.
• If you have multiple paths within a single shape, only the initial path shows in the Properties Panel. You can still edit the other paths within the timeline window.
• Shape Modifiers applied to Shapes do not show in the Properties Panel.
• Layers/Shapes cannot be renamed or reordered within the Layer Contents window.
• If you have a lot of Shapes on one layer, the Layer Contents window may not auto-scroll to your selected Shape. You can use the scrollbar to get to it.
• When scrubbing the Rotation angle, revolutions are not properly counted (rotating past 360 will start over at 0). You can type in values directly.
• If you have multiple keyframes on a property, deleting one or more from the Properties Panel does not work correctly. Move to the timeline to delete instead.
• Deleting a Shape Layer from either the timeline or Properties Panel throws an AE error. Just click OK and keep working.
• Keyframing a gradient fill/stroke from the Properties Panel throws an AE error. Click OK, and go to the timeline to set your keyframes.
• Resetting values in the Properties Panel will reset the values within the timeline, but the value still appears the same in the Properties Panel.

[LAR5]

Go to next / previous keyframe works only when the keyframes are exposed on the timeline as well.
Of course, the cool thing about the Property Panel is, that the layers shouldn't be needed to be untwirled. Currently e.g. having keys on the position property and having the layer twirled up on the timeline - not showing the keyframes, the arrows next to the keyframe indicator on the Property Panel to go to the next / previous key won't do that and will just move the CTI to the start or the end of the work area.
Thanks!

[James Landy]

Problem verifed in-house and added to our bug queue.  Good one! Thanks for the report

[sskaz]

This is a very nice start! I haven’t installed it but from watching the video…

• Would love to see developed and expanded over time. Like turned into a C4D-like attributes manager and merged with Effects Controls. (I’d prefer jamming more things into a vertical panel instead of losing limited vertical space within the timeline panel.)
• How are Shape Groups/nested group hierarchies handled?
• Can the parameter labels (the Size, Position, Scale, etc. text) be selectable for copy and paste?
• Would like to see the Layer Contents field be repsonsive/adaptive. It looks like a fixed height regardless of how many shapes there are.
• Are Stroke options (Caps, Dashes, Taper, etc.) coming? Perhaps under a twirl down arrow?

[Christine Goldby]

Hi @sskaz , sorry - I lost your post over the holiday break.
These are all great suggestions, and I can certainly tell you that it will be expanded, this is just the introduction. Thank you for your ideas, keep watching for the updates!

[LAR5]

...now all the property names in the timeline are gone. 😬
22.2.0x41
Thanks
I also reported it just now: https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-beta-discussions/all-property-names-are-gone-in-the-tim...

[JohnColombo]

Thanks @LAR5. This one should be fixed in the next available Beta build ( 22.2.0.45 ).

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

[LAR5]

Fixed it is - thanks John.

[PFuerst]

I think it would also be great to have some sort of a "version system" in there.

Much like there is in Fusion or with Takes in Cinema. This way we could try out different settings and see what works best without the need to duplicate layers.

[Martyn5C4A]

Looks good.

Please add a paths button or shortcut.

Thanks

[James Landy]

Thanks for the suggestion.  We had hoped to have had this working in our initial beta release but ran out of time.  Shortcut method to add shape/path will be available soon.

[xiaoxixi]

Didn't see anyone mention this. So I'll ask, will Essential Properties be added to this Properties Panel?

To me, Essential Properties is used almost in every one of my projects. But when I have many Essential Properties enabled precomps in my timeline, I need to twirl open every single one of them to change a parameter value. Adding Essential Properties to Properties Panel must be a great workflow booster.

[GregPin]

Love the feature !

But I have an issue to report : 

Scrubbing the values of any properties in the Properties Panel is sluggish/choppy, while srubbing values in the timeline is fluid as ususal. 

I'm experiencing this on a dual monitor (4k), so perhpas it has something to do with it.

Can someone else confirm the issue ? Thx

[Kyle Hamrick]

Confirmed. I have a dual-monitor setup, but am testing this all on one screen. Scrubbing layer Position in the Props panel has a noticeable visual lag & lowered frame rate on the actual displayed layer contents (but not the outlines), while scrubbing in the timeline does not. 
If you hold ALT while scrubbing the values (which disables UI update until release), the outlines move smoothly.

[Christine Goldby]

Thanks @GregPin and @Kyle Hamrick , we can reproduce this as well. We're looking into it.

[James Landy]

We’ve made some performance improvements to scrub interactions for property streams.  There should be no delay in comp layers updating when scrubbing values in the PP compared to the TLW.  Can you please verify with Ae 22.3 beta   x45 or higher and report back your result?  Thanks.

[Kyle Hamrick]

Thanks, James. 

I'd say it still feels like it's functioning at a lower frame rate (maybe half?) than when I'm scrubbing the same property in the timeline, but it's definitely improved from before. 

Here's what I'm seeing: https://www.loom.com/share/7b3f540b93d841a1a752248a648eef3d

[James Landy]

Thanks for providing the screen recording example, Kyle.  I can see what you’re seeing in the recording and on my local system.  Very subtle, but still not on par with TLW.  I’ve added your findings to our product backlog for possible future performance enhancement.  Our current priority is adding support for text layers, which is in progress. 

[Stephen_ANM]

This feature is good for now but i think we should add some thing which is can not controlled by keyboard shortcut. For EXP: Trim path from shape layer, taper, line cap which is use so much. For Pos/Rotation/Opacity is easy to control and reveal by shorcut. 

Thank you 

[charlesbevan]

I believe I found a bug: when the Properties Panel is active, Keyframe Assistant > Sequence Layers... doesn't respect selection order (i.e. selecting bottom-to-top or random selection). It instead sequences based on the layer order, top-down.

If you close the Properties Panel, re-select your layers and try again, it works as expected.

[Christine Goldby]

Good find @charlesbevan , we'll get that written up. Thanks!

[Bruno Quintin]

If you want to improve the use of the shape layers, remember to take into account the requests that have already been made:
To be able to lock and use label colors as for masks.

It should also be possible to move an element from one layer to another by drag and drop. It should also be possible to group without breaking the expressions. And when we group, the coordinates should be zero for the position and the anchor point and not create the same offset in both.

And take example on the exellent work of Overlord — Battle Axe for the interaction with Illlustrator. It's your software dammned it's up to you to do this work.

[Christine Goldby]

Thanks for the feedback @Bruno Quintin, lots of good suggestions that I will add your vote to on our list. 
And we agree, Overlord has done a great job.

[jackthegiantslayer]

I would be happy just for the ability to translate AI text layers to editable text layers in After Effects. All my projects come in with dozens of text layers that I have to manually cut and paste between the apps. It's LONG OVERDUE.

[Kyle Hamrick]

Chiming in WAY late to say that I applaud the concept, and am looking forward to its continued development. As someone who often builds intricate multi-path, multi-grouped nearly-a-whole-composition-inside-one-shape-layer kinds of madness, this definitely has a lot of limitations in its current state, but I know I'm not the user this is probably aimed at right now. 🙂 

v22.2.0x91: Ungrouping (or further nesting) an existing group using hotkeys both kicks me an "internal verification failure" error, and straight-up deletes the previously-grouped elements. Happy to provide details if needed!

[Christine Goldby]

Hey @Kyle Hamrick , details on that ungrouping issue would be very helpful. Can you give us your system details, along with any more info on the error you are seeing?