Nebula
Clouds of colour slowly folding through each other.
- Kind
- Layer · Backgrounds
- Script name
nebula- Cost to draw
- Heavy
- Blend
- Light costs no extra pass

Notes
A nebula looks best with something in front of it: Stars above it, or a second, smaller nebula set to Screen under Layer, so it only ever lightens what's below. Nebula Drift does both.
Nebula
| Setting | Kind | Starts at | Range and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
First colourcolour1 | colour | #0b2a3a | – |
Second colourcolour2 | colour | #7ce695 | – |
Third colourcolour3 | colour | #a98bff | – |
Cloud covercoverage | number | 60% | 0% to 100% |
Sizesize | number | 1× | 0.3 to 4× |
Swirlswirl | number | 0.8× | 0 to 2× |
Speedspeed | number | 0.5× | 0 to 3× |
Depthdepth | number | 1.4× | 0.5 to 3× |
Brightnessbrightness | number | 90% | 0% to 200% |
Detaildetail | number | 5 | 2 to 7More is finer, and heavier |
From a script
Every setting above can be changed by the scene's logic, by its key. Say the layer is called Nebula:
scene.set("Nebula", "colour1", "#ff8a5c");scene.animate("Nebula", "opacity", 0.5, 2);import { scene } from "motion";scene.set("Nebula", "colour1", "#ff8a5c");scene.animate("Nebula", "opacity", 0.5, 2);◆On Scene Start
ƒSet Layer SettingTarget is Layer
TargetNebula
Parameter Namecolour1
Parameter Value
Used in
The example scenes with a Nebula layer in them. Each picture is the whole scene, not the layer alone: open one to see what the layer does in it.
What every layer has
Besides its own settings, every layer has its opacity, blend, placement, quick effects and an effects stack. They're listed once, on the layers page.
Notes from the community
Written by creators and checked by the docs' editors. Not part of Motion's official reference.
Constellations
Nebula Drift
Solar Wind