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 PanelSelect 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.

Known Participant

Question

Introducing the Properties Panel in After Effects (Beta)

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
December 9, 2021
39 replies
174515 views

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.

PropertiesPanel_Demo_Dec2021_2.zip

Feature request

Show previous replies

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Wow!

As someone who will probably always remain a "relative noob" in Ae, this is SO useful! Makes perfect sense and is so much faster for my piddly little projects.

Thank you!

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

Bruno Quintin

Inspiring

There is the same problem as with the Effects panel: It is not possible to select properties as we do in the timeline.

If you can do it in this new panel, consider doing it for the Effects panel. (pleeeease).

If it were possible to select properties, there might be a possibility to isolate these properties (hiding all others) or even to save the selections.

it would be great

prestongibson_

Participant

I'd love to see keyframe info in this panel. Instantly check values + velocities without having to right click and open a secondary window.

LAR5

Participating Frequently

Selecting multiple Shape Layers and hitting delete (backspace) pops this alert:

After Effects (Beta) error: CSelectronASSERT fail: CSelectron: layer is null

The layers do get deleted as expected.

LAR5

Participating Frequently

Same error when delting a shape layer, which is used as track matte:

After Effects (Beta) error: CSelectronASSERT fail: CSelectron: layer is null

PFuerst

Inspiring

Finally!!! So glad to this this happening. I think different Tabs would be nice to have to make the list not to long.

I think the panel should be next to the timeline so that the distance the mouse has to traffel will be as short as possible

LAR5

Participating Frequently

Thanks for adding this!

Just letting you know, I had to delete my prefs folder to get it working.
Prior I had the error:

After Effects (Beta) warning: Unnown Exception.

when trying to launch the panel. Maybe an issue with the workspaces? Tried the (old?) "Default" with the same error. So I trashed the prefs and now it is working.
Cheers

Szalam

Community Expert

So excited to see this! Another great move to make AE better for artists. Thank you!

S

Scott Simmons

Known Participant

As this Poperties Panel grows, I would like to see it work as an attribute editor a la a 3D program or other anim programs. The selected object would have diffrent tabs for different attributes such as physics, lighing, reflections, 3D etc.

S

Scott Simmons

Known Participant

Oh, I like this a lot and I like where this is headed. So can we expect to see presets and effect controls in this Properties Panel? I think this Panel should be on the right side of the workspace as you've shown.

Christine GoldbyAuthor

Known Participant

Hi @Scott Simmons !

At the moment since effect controls already have their own panel, they won't be the next feature added in here. We want to focus on the properties that require a lot of twirling in the timeline right now. However this is an open book and we are looking forward to hearing what you all think as you are using it. I know one of our QEs was showing us last week that he has been stacking the Effects Control panel underneath the Properties Panel over on the right so he can have both open and working. We are excited to see how workflows may adjust!

prbmotion

Participating Frequently

Yeah, I could definitely see a lot more "properties" being consolidated into this pannel. It's definitely nice for all the typical transform properties (ie; position, scale, roation) as well as things like fill color.

Personally, I feel like it would be really nice to have text properties in here as well. So "character" and "paragraph" pannels don't have to take up any extra screen real estate. It would also make the user experience feel similar between working with a shape layer (changing colors, size) and working with text layers (changing font color and size, etc)

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