Adding an Effect to a Composition

An effect is an animation that plays on fixtures. It has no place or time of its own: an effect always resides inside a composition, in one of its layouts, and occupies a bar with its own start and end on the Timeline. This article covers the first step: how to take a ready-made effect from the library and place it into a composition. For what to do next, see Effect Settings and Расстановка эффектов по времени.

What to do before adding

Open a composition. Click its card in the Compositions window — the composition will open in the Timeline window (a double click will also show its settings in the Properties window). While no composition is open, there is nowhere to add an effect: the Timeline window is empty, and the buttons in the effect library do nothing.
Select a layout. The effect lands in whichever row of the Timeline is selected: click the row with the layout's name — the selected row is filled with a lighter color and outlined with a light border. If nothing is selected, the effect lands in the topmost row of the list; in a new project this is the Main layout, which occupies the entire Mapping field. About layouts, see Создание и изменение лейаутов. An effect is added to a projection the same way, if its row is selected — see Adding Effects to a Projection.

The "Effects" window

The effect library opens in two ways:

the Effects button — the first one on the left of the button panel in the Timeline window;
the Window → Effects checkbox in the main menu.

The window closes the same way: by pressing the button again or unchecking the menu item. By default the window opens right above the button and covers part of the timeline — this is normal: once the needed effects are added, the window is closed. If desired, it can be dragged by its title bar and docked to the edge of the workspace — then it stays on screen permanently, and its position is saved together with the workspace (see Workspace).

Inside the window there are three parts, top to bottom: a search bar, a row of categories (All, Favorites, Fixtures, Circles, Waves, Particles, Color and others), and a grid of tiles — one tile per effect: a preview image with its name underneath.

Hover the cursor over a tile — its border highlights orange, the preview starts playing, and a + button appears in the center of the tile. Search works within the selected category: if an effect definitely exists but isn't found by search, switch to the All category. For more about the library itself and what it contains, see Библиотека эффектов.

How to add an effect

Open a composition and select a layout in the Timeline window.
Open the Effects window.
Find the effect you need — select a category or type part of its name into the search bar.
Hover the cursor over the tile and see how the effect looks in motion.
Add the effect to the composition using any of three ways:

Method	How
Double click	Double-click the effect's image
"Plus" button	Hover the cursor over the tile and click the + button that appears in its center
Right-click menu	Right-click the tile and choose Add

Close the Effects window with the Effects button on the Timeline panel — it will no longer cover the timeline.

Any number of effects can be added one after another in a single pass: the window stays open, and each added effect immediately lands in the composition.

What happens right after adding

A new row with the effect's name appears in the selected layout, and its bar appears on the time scale. The bar spans the entire composition, from zero to the end; afterwards it is shortened and moved manually, see Расстановка эффектов по времени. If the layout was collapsed, it expands automatically.
The effect lands in the layout on top of the effects already there — its row becomes the topmost one. If it is opaque, the effects below become invisible; the stacking order is changed by dragging the row, see Режимы смешивания.
The effect is enabled, the blend mode is Normal, and the opacity is at maximum. The enable checkbox, blend mode, and opacity are located right in the effect's row on the timeline.
The effect starts playing immediately: the result is visible in the Mapping field and in the 3D View window.
Selection switches to the new effect: the previous selection on the timeline is cleared, and the effect's parameters open in the Properties window — color, speed, and size can be adjusted right away. See Effect Settings.
At first there is nothing under the effect's row on the timeline. A parameter appears there as a separate row only after keyframe mode has been enabled for it in the Properties window — see Keyframes and Effect Parameters.
The effect's name is taken from the library. It can be renamed by double-clicking the name in the effect's row, or with the Rename command in the right-click menu: in a composition with a dozen effects, meaningful names save a lot of time.
Made a mistake — Ctrl+Z undoes the addition, and the selected effect is deleted with the Delete key.

It's important to understand: what lands in the composition is a copy of the effect from the library. From then on it lives its own life — its settings don't change the library, and the library is the same in every project. The same effect can be added to a composition ten times over and each copy configured differently.

If the effect ended up in the wrong place

Wrong layout. The effect is moved by dragging the row with its name into another layout — Перемещение эффектов между лейаутами. To avoid moving it every time, select the needed layout in advance.
Need another identical copy. Right-click the effect's row and choose Duplicate — a copy with all its settings and keyframes appears next to the original, and it is immediately selected. This is faster than adding the effect from the library again and configuring it from scratch.
The effect is needed in another composition. Right-click the effect's row, choose Clone, and pick a composition from the list — a copy of the effect lands in it on top of the rest, in the layout with the same number. There is no need to open the other composition for this, and layouts are shared across the whole project, so the copy lands in the same area.

Other ways to populate a composition

Besides the effect library, a composition can be filled with your own files — using buttons on the same panel of the Timeline window:

Button	What it adds
Import Image	An image. It lands in the selected layout and behaves on the timeline like a regular effect
Import Video	A video file or a sequence — a folder with numbered frames. For a video file, a window with import settings opens first
Import Audio	An audio track. It becomes a separate row in the Audio group below the list of layouts, and is drawn on the scale as a waveform — convenient for arranging effects to music

Imported files are not embedded into the project — only the path to them is saved. If the project is moved to another computer, collect it with the File → Collect Project command.

If the effect wasn't added or can't be seen

Check in order:

Nothing happens on double click. No composition is open. Go to the Compositions window and click the needed card — its contents should appear in the Timeline.
The effect isn't visible on the timeline. It landed in the row that was selected, and that row may be below the visible area — scroll the list of layouts.
The effect is there, but the fixtures don't light up. Most likely it's covered by another effect — one lying above it in the same layout, or an effect in a layout positioned higher on the timeline. In the first composition of a new project, the Main layout contains the Atom 3D effect: delete it or uncheck it.
Fixtures don't fall within the layout. An effect is only visible on fixtures within the boundaries of its own layout; the boundaries are visible in the Mapping field.
The time cursor is outside the effect's bar. If the bar has already been moved or shortened, place the cursor inside it.
The effect is disabled or transparent. Check the checkbox to the left of the effect's name and its opacity, as well as the overall brightness slider in the top-right corner of the Timeline window.
The timeline itself isn't visible. The Effects window opens on top of it — close the window with the Effects button or dock it to the edge of the workspace.