Kinektic
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Reference

Effect layers, animators, modifiers and effects

From ready-made effect layers to animators, modifiers and image effects. The settings for each, in one place.

  • Everything can be animated. Settings are keyframed on the timeline and shaped in the Curves editor.
  • Stack as many as you like, in any order. Each can be switched on and off with one click, or switched on only for part of the timeline.
  • Every effect has a Mix control to blend between the original and the effected picture.
  • Effect layers blend like light. They're added onto what's behind them by default, with their own opacity and blend mode, and their key points are handles you drag on the stage.
  • Effects run on your graphics card when the project uses the GPU renderer, the default for new projects, and fall back to the processor on any machine without one.
  • Dynamic motion blur samples each layer by how fast it moves: still layers are drawn once, slow ones get a few samples, fast ones up to the composition's maximum - so blur costs only where there is motion.
  • Gradients blend in OKLCH, so colours stay vivid through the middle of a ramp (red to blue passes through violet, not a muddy purple). Every gradient has a Space setting to switch to OKLab or plain sRGB, and Preferences sets how keyframed colours blend.
  • Gradient stops have Opacity, so a fill or stroke can fade to full transparency.
  • Sound. Import .wav, .mp3, .m4a, .ogg, .flac and more as audio layers, and videos play their own sound. Each has a keyframable Volume in dB, Fade In, Fade Out and Mute; expand a layer in the timeline to see its waveform. An Audio panel holds the composition's keyframable Master volume, a green-yellow-red level meter, the preview's own volume, and every sounding layer with its own fader and mute. Sound plays with the editor's preview, plays a snippet while you scrub, and is mixed into every render. The Render window's Sound section picks the codec and bitrate for the format: AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless or FLAC in MP4; AAC, uncompressed PCM, Apple Lossless or MP3 in MOV (PCM by default with ProRes); Opus or Vorbis in WebM; a 16- or 24-bit WAV beside a PNG sequence.
  • Paint gizmo: a circle under the toolbar on the stage - the fill in the middle, the stroke around it. Click either to switch between solid, gradient, pattern or none and pick colours by eye; drag the ring to set the stroke width, seeing it as thick as it will draw. New shapes are made in whatever paint it holds.
  • Drop media onto effect layers: drag an image, video or composition from Assets straight onto a Torn Paper, Polaroid or Parallax on the stage to make it show that. Every source field in Properties also has a preview under its list that you can drop media on.
  • Swap media in place: Alt-drag an image, video or sound from Assets onto a layer of the same kind in the timeline, or select layers and right-click an asset for Replace in Selected Layer. The layer keeps everything - position, timing, keyframes, effects, volume - and just shows the new file.
  • Template text limits: give a text field a Max characters in the Template panel, and a render cannot be handed a page of a book for a short title. Past the limit the stage stops taking text and a warning shows. A render given text over the limit either goes ahead with a warning (loose, the default) or refuses (strict), as the panel's Template Rules say. Each field also folds out an Instructions note - what belongs in it - never rendered, but written to template.json for apps and AI that fill templates in. template.json carries each field's maxLength and instructions, and the template's rules. The panel's Composition picks what a render makes unless it asks for another (--comp), written as defaultComposition.
  • Convert to Asset Font: with an installed font chosen for a text, one button under the font links that font's files to the project, so it is packed with it, exported in templates and sent to remote renderers, and renders the same on a machine that does not have it installed.
  • Convert to Curves (Layers menu, or the end of a shape's Shape section) turns any shape or text into a free shape of its outline, to edit point by point. Keyframes on position, scale, rotation, paint and so on stay; the shape is taken as it is at the playhead.

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Effect layers

Effect layers draw an effect from nothing, in the composition itself. You place them by dragging their points on the stage (a laser's two ends, an emitter, a light source), and every setting keyframes on the timeline like any other layer's. Effects can be added on top of any of them; Torn Paper, Neon Text, Polaroid, Chyron, Parallax and Morph also move, turn and scale like ordinary layers.

Animators

Text animators work on a text layer character by character, word by word, or line by line. Object animators move a whole layer of any kind, text included.

Many entrances also have an Animate Out switch. It adds a matching exit with its own timing and style, so words can slide in from the left and float away upwards. When you first turn it on, the exit copies the entrance, ready to adjust.

Most animators are driven by a Progress value (0 to 1) that you keyframe, with Delay and Duration setting the rhythm from one character or word to the next. Order chooses who goes first: forward, reverse, from the centre, from the edges, or random.

Highlighted text. Any part of a text layer can be set apart in a named style: its own colour, font, weight, italic, outline and letter spacing. Select some of the text in Properties and press Highlight. Highlighted words keep their style under every text animator, and Animate In, Scale In and Word Packer have a Highlighted section that lets those words animate their own way: one word scaling up big while the rest slide in, or dropping in while the rest grow.

Modifiers

Modifiers work on shapes, text, images, video and nested compositions; the exceptions are noted on each. Whatever they produce is still the same layer, with its own animation and effects.

Effects

Effects can go on a single layer, on a whole composition, or on either; the scope is noted on each. Each has a Mix control to blend the effect with the original.