Altar panel overview.
The Altar panel is a customizable After Effects toolbox of deterministic Tools. Arrange them on your own Canvas and add your scripts, expressions and presets beside them.
The Altar panel is a toolbox inside After Effects. It holds 42 built-in Tools for selection, keyframes, layout, easing, color, primitives, text and pre-rendering, and you arrange them on a Canvas. Then add your own scripts, expressions, presets and effects next to them.
Running a Tool uses no AI. It does the same steps on the same selection every time, and the result is ordinary layers, properties and keyframes.
Tools, Widgets and Buttons
Everything on the Canvas is a Tool. A Tool is one of two kinds:
- Button - one click and it runs. Most of the keyframe and selection Tools are Buttons. You can make your own.
- Widget - a Tool with controls on the Canvas, such as Easing or Anchor + Align
- Distribute. Widgets ship with Altar.
The manual sometimes says “tools and widgets”. Both are Tools.
What is in the box
Certified Tools cover:
- Selection - pick every text layer, null, precomp, shape layer and more, or select by pattern (odd, even, every Nth, random, matching property).
- Keyframes - align, move, snap, clone, reverse, copy and paste keyframe values.
- Layout and creation - anchor points, alignment, distribution and primitives.
- Animation and color - Easing, Text Point and Color Swatches.
- Production - Pre-render, and Command search to find and run anything in the panel.
The full list is in the Tool reference.
Scope and project changes
Most Tools act on your current selection in the active comp: selected layers, selected keyframes or selected properties. Keyframe and layout Tools that change your comp make one undo step in After Effects. Selection Tools only change what is selected, and After Effects does not record selection in undo.
Some Tools do more than edit existing layers. Pre-render renders your work area and imports the footage into the comp, and Primitives creates new layers. Each Tool’s reference page says what it acts on and what it adds.
See How Altar works for how targeting works across Altar.
Where to go next
Reverse a set of keyframes with one click. First win with Altar.
Move, resize and group Tools. Understand the Canvas.