Side Panels and Side Bars

To the left of the Viewer is a vertical bar containing various tools:

(T) 2D Transform Tool: to move layers, paths and their points. Turns into 3D Transform Tool when the Viewer switches to 3D mode via the selector in the top right-hand corner, next to the Zoom Factor.
(Y) Layout Tool: to distribute and align a the current selection of layers or paths
(M) Motion-Path Tool: to work on multiple Motion-Paths at the same time or tweak the timing of a layer.
(D) Shape Tool: create complex shape animation
(W) Text Tool: animate every character, word or line of text

Sub-Tools and Top/Options Bar:

For each tool, sub-tools may appear in the lower part of the Vertical Toolbar, and several context-sensitive options appear in the horizontal bar just above the Viewer.

Side Panels

In addition to movable panels within a workspace, Autograph integrates four other types of panel into the viewer, called Side Panels.

To access it, click on the button at the top right of the Viewer:

(C) Comp Overview Tree: equivalent of Selection Overview, but on the scale of a full project, a composition or a layer selection
(V) Visual Stack: to view the contents of a composition at a glance
(B) Inspector: similar to Inspector Panel, allows you to have a second panel of this type to make connections between parameters more quickly, or to have access to this module when working in Maximized mode.
Audio Meter: displays the Audio Mix Peakmeter

Note

Bear in mind that keyboard shortcuts in Autograph depend on your mouse location. You'll need to place your cursor over the viewer to use them.

Comp Overview Tree

This Side Panel works in a similar way to the Selection Overview, but with a lower level of detail. Its purpose is to present an overview of the current composition or the project.

Two modes are available in the top selector:

(C) Composition: inspects the composition content currently connected to the Viewer
(Alt + C) Project Tree: displays dependencies between compositions, when using Sub-Compositions.

Warning

As described in Locking or Freezing a Viewer, it's possible for the Viewer to display a different composition than the one contained in your Timeline. To ensure that the contents of the Overview Tree_ correspond to the Timeline you're working in, check that this Timeline is actually connected to the Viewer.

Composition mode:

By default, this Overview Tree only displays Layers using Modifiers or Generators applied to something else than the Layer Source.

With the default options, a single layer newly added to a composition will not appear in this panel. But if we add a Noise Generator this layer's Position parameter, we'll see this hierarchy appear.

Adding a Blur Modifier to its Source will also make it appear in the Tree.

Tip

Switches next to the Modifier and its Modifier Group allow you to quickly disable them.

Click on one of these lines to quickly select a parameter and make it appear in the Inspector.

Composition mode Options :

Clicking the cogwheel at the top right of the panel displays some options:

Show Layers Without Modifiers: we mentioned that, by default, a layer newly added to the composition would not be visible. Checking this option will make it so
Show Selected Layer Only: restricts the display to selected layers only
Show Active Layers Only: displays only layers whose Visibility parameter is Enabled for the current frame.

Tip

The first option displays more elements, while the next two apply more restrictive filters to reduce the number of items in the tree.

Warning

Remember that in Autograph, Visibility and Opacity are two different things. Compared to After Effects, Autograph allows a layer to have multiple In and Out points, thanks to Visibility keys.

Project Tree mode:

This mode shows the dependencies between all existing compositions in the Project Panel.

When a composition is used as a Sub-Composition, a Tree appears with the Parent Composition at the top, then the Sub-Composition as its child.

A simple click on a composition name connects it to both the last active Viewer and the last active Timeline.

Note

A composition can be used as a Sub-Composition by two parent compositions. In this case, its name will be displayed in the tree as many times as this source is used. Clicking on either will connect the same composition to the Viewer and Timeline.

Visual Stack

Despite Autograph's advanced selection process, sometimes getting an overview of all of the layers in a composition can be difficult, especially if some of them are hidden by others.

To better navigate in the Stack, you can check the Visual Stack (press the V key).

The Visual Stack is a stack of layers, represented in a 3D isometric view:

Layer order in the Visual Stack is similar to that of the Stack in the Timeline.
Only layers visible at the current time are displayed. If the playhead in the dope sheet is not positioned over a layer block, the layer block will be not displayed in the Visual Stack.
Each thumbnail is the same size and represents the content of a layer's bounding box, which is useful for very small or large images.
Layers with an infinite size ("Unbounded"), will be cropped by the format of the current composition.

On the left, you can see a counter that represents the number of the current layer.

To navigate in this Stack:

Use the Mouse wheel
Press the Middle Button
Use the scroller on the right