Each composition has its own Timeline panel. You use the Timeline panel to perform many tasks, such as animating layer properties, arranging layers in time, and setting blending modes. The layers at the bottom of the layer stacking order in the Timeline panel are rendered first and—in the case of 2D image layers— appear farthest back in the Composition panel.

To cycle forward through Timeline panels, press Alt+Shift+period (.) (Windows) or Option+Shift+period (.) (Mac OS). To cycle backward through Timeline panels, press Alt+Shift+comma (,) (Windows) or Option+Shift+comma (,) (Mac OS).

A composition’s current time is indicated by the current-time indicator, the vertical red line in the time graph. A composition’s current time also appears in the current time display in the upper-left corner of the Timeline panel. For more information on moving the current-time indicator, see Move the current-time indicator.

A.

Current-time display

B.

Current-time indicator

C.

Time ruler

D.

Layer switches

E.

Time graph

The left side of the Timeline panel consists of columns of controls for layers. The right side of the Timeline panel—the time graph—contains a time ruler, markers, keyframes, expressions, duration bars for layers (in layer bar mode), and the Graph Editor (in Graph Editor mode).

Press the backslash (\) key to switch activation between the Composition panel and Timeline panel for the current composition.