Shapes
Shapes are the structural building blocks of your design. Squares and rectangles are used for backgrounds, bars, and dividers. Circles work well for score bugs and profile frames. The rest add visual interest and directional elements.
Available shapes
Click Elements in the sidebar to see the full set: Circle, Square, Triangle, Line, Rhombus, Parallelogram, Star, Heart — each also available as an Outline variant (transparent fill, visible stroke only).
Adding a shape
Click a shape in the Elements panel and it's placed immediately at the centre of the canvas, already selected.
Styling shapes
With a shape selected, controls are split between the context toolbar (above the canvas) and the Properties panel:
| Property | Where |
|---|---|
| Fill colour | Context toolbar |
| Gradient | Context toolbar — multi-stop colour gradient |
| Stroke colour | Context toolbar |
| Stroke width | Context toolbar |
| Rounded corners | Context toolbar — 0 is sharp, higher values are more rounded |
| Shadow | Context toolbar |
| Edit points | Context toolbar — Rhombus, Parallelogram, and Star only. See Editing points below. |
| Opacity | Properties panel |
Gradients can significantly elevate the look of a graphic. Try a subtle dark-to-transparent gradient on a lower-third bar instead of a flat colour — it blends more naturally over video.
Editing points
Rhombus, Parallelogram, and Star are built from individual vertices you can reshape directly, rather than just resizing the bounding box.
Opening the editor — any of these three ways:
- Click Edit points in the context toolbar
- Double-click the shape
- Press E with the shape selected
While editing:
- Drag a vertex to reposition it. A small readout follows your cursor showing its coordinates (and the skew angle, for Parallelogram).
- Hold Shift while dragging to snap the vertex to 15° angle increments.
- Hover a vertex and press Delete or Backspace to remove it (the shape must keep at least 3 points).
Closing the editor:
- Enter, or the Done button, commits your changes.
- Escape, or the Cancel button, reverts to how the shape looked when you opened the editor.
Animating shapes
Shapes can be animated two ways:
- Presets — in the Animate tab, choose from Fade, Stamp, Pop, Slide, Scale, Rotate, Wipe, Roll, and Flip (several take a direction). Applying one generates the underlying keyframes for you — it's a shortcut, not a separate animation system.
- Keyframes — for anything a preset doesn't cover, or to fine-tune one after applying it, any property (position, size, opacity, colour) can be keyframed directly on the timeline for precise, frame-accurate control.
See Animation Types — Shapes & Images for how to get started.