Colours, gradients and palettes

Every colour in StykAnimate is chosen with one colour picker. Learn it once and you can recolour a figure, one of its parts, a fill or an effect, sample a colour from the stage, and keep your favourite colours in palettes.

Recolour a figure

1. Click the figure on the stage (not a joint) so its name is at the top of Properties.
2. In Appearance, click the colour field (the swatch and its code, like 0D99FF). The picker opens beside it, titled Fill.
3. Drag in the big square: left to right is how strong the colour is, top to bottom how bright. Drag the rainbow bar to change the hue. The figure changes as you drag.
4. Click outside the picker, click × or press Esc to close it. The colour stays. If you change your mind, press Ctrl+Z.

If the figure has more than one colour, the field says Mixed, and a new colour there paints every part. To change only one of the colours, use Colours.

The picker, control by control

The picker changes the colour as you go; closing it does not undo anything. Every change is in your undo history.

Pick a colour from the stage

1. Open the picker and click Eyedropper. The button turns blue.
2. Move over the stage. A magnifier shows the pixels under the pointer and their HEX code.
3. Click. The colour is picked and the eyedropper turns off. Esc turns it off without picking.

Example: to give a second character exactly the same skin colour as the first, eyedropper it from the first character instead of guessing the code.

Palettes: Project, Recent and Mine

1. Pick the colour, then click + at the right of the palette tabs. A colour that is already in the palette is not added twice: the button greys out.
2. To keep colours for other projects, click Mine, choose New palette…, type a name (for example “Skin tones”) and click Create.
3. Later, click Mine and choose the palette by name to use its colours.

Replace one colour everywhere

The Colours section (with the figure selected) lists every colour the figure uses, one swatch each, and how many fills it has.

1. Select the figure and open Colours in Properties.
2. Click the swatch of the colour you want to change. The picker opens for that colour only.
3. Pick the new colour. Every part that had the old colour changes; the others stay.

Example: a character has a red shirt, black limbs and a pale face. To put him in the blue team, replace only the red swatch with blue. The black and pale parts are not touched. Reset colors (the arrow in Appearance) brings back the figure’s original colours.

Colour one part, or one branch

In Build, select a part and use the colour field in Style. Turn on Whole branch (B) first to colour a part and everything below it, like a whole arm. A polygon fill has its own Fill color. Colours you set in Build are the figure’s design, so every copy of the figure gets them.

In Animate, a colour change is part of the pose on the current frame. To make a figure change colour over time, add a key on the frame where the change starts (A), then change the colour there.

Gradients

Effect colours (for example a Glow in VFX) can be a gradient. Their picker has two more tabs at the top, Solid and Gradient:

1. Click Gradient and choose its type: Linear, Radial, Angular or Diamond.
2. Click a stop under the preview to select it, then pick its colour. Drag a stop along the bar, or type its Stop position in %.
3. Use + next to Stops to add a stop and − to remove one. A gradient has 2 to 32 stops.
4. Set the angle, or use Reverse gradient and Rotate 90°.

Figure parts, polygon fills and text use plain colours. The scene background has its own fill window with gradient choices.

Common questions

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