Canvas background color does not change

Symptoms

If one or more of these match what you are seeing, you are on the right page.

• •Clicking the background selects nothing
• •The background does not appear in the Layer Panel
• •The background cannot be keyframed in Animate mode
• •A checkerboard pattern appears instead of a color

Causes and fixes

Ordered from most to least likely. Work down the list — each cause is paired with what to do about it.

1. 1

   You are trying to select the background on the canvas.

   Set it in Canvas & Project Setup instead, where the background can be a solid color, a gradient, or Transparent.

2. 2

   The background is set to Transparent.

   The checkerboard indicates transparency and is a display aid only — it never appears in an export. Switch the background to Solid color if you want an opaque result, or keep Transparent and export to PNG or WebM with alpha.

3. 3

   You need the background to animate.

   The background cannot be animated directly. Place a rectangle the size of the canvas on the bottom-most layer and animate its material properties — that gives you the full fill, gradient and blend mode system on a background.

4. 4

   You are changing the default rather than this project.

   Default Canvas Color in Preferences applies to new projects only. Change the current project in Canvas & Project Setup.

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