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Groups, compositions or scenes: what should the Animation Studio call layers kept together?

· 2 min read
Jon-Michael Lastimosa
Jon-Michael Lastimosa
Senior Web Developer

The question: Big scenes need a way to keep layers together, like compositions in a video editor, where you double-click a composition to work inside it. What should the Animation Studio call that: a composition, a scene, or a group?

Context​

In the Animation Studio, the scene is the whole thing: one timeline, one file, one placement on a page. Video tools let you nest a timeline inside another (a precomposition) so a headline and its underline can be timed, moved and animated as one. The Studio needed the same, and the name decides how people understand it.

Options considered​

Composition. Familiar to video editors, but the Studio already calls the top-level timeline a scene, so it would have both "scenes" and "compositions", and every new user would ask how they differ.

Scene (nested scenes). Consistent with the file, but confusing in practice: a scene inside a scene sounds like a second page, not a part of this one.

Group. What website and design tools (Figma, Framer, Webflow) call a layer that holds layers. Most Studio users come from building websites, not from video editing.

Decision​

Call it a Group, and give it the behaviour of a precomposition:

  • It holds layers and has its own clock: its contents' clips start from the group's start, so moving the group in time moves its whole animation.
  • Double-click opens it: the timeline shows its layers, a breadcrumb shows where you are, the rest of the stage is dimmed, and Escape steps back out.
  • Presets on the group animate it as a whole, around its own frame.
  • Grouping and ungrouping never move anything, on the stage or in time.

Reusable groups that update everywhere when edited are left for later, under their own name (components).

Why​

The word people already know should carry the feature, and "group" is that word for this audience. Using "composition" would have added a second top-level concept next to "scene" for no gain; the precomposition behaviour comes along regardless of the name.