Managing Themes and Changes

Use a tokenized dotLottie file from Workspace when you want to keep the token or theme changes you make in the After Effects plugin. Explore is intended for temporary preview and insertion; Workspace adds theme management and saving.

Open the Motion Token panel

Open Workspace in the LottieFiles plugin.
Select a dotLottie animation that contains Motion Tokens.
Expand Motion Token below the player.

After Effects Workspace animation detail with the Motion Token accordion highlighted beside the composition — Open Motion Token from a tokenized Workspace animation to inspect its themes and values

Understand Default and named themes

Default shows the file's base token values. A named theme stores a different set of values for the same tokens, so one animation can support variants such as different brand palettes or UI states.

Choose a theme to preview it immediately. Editing Default changes the base slot values when you save; editing a named theme changes only that theme.

After Effects Workspace Motion Token panel expanded to show the Default theme and its editable values — Use Default to inspect or change the animation's base token values

Add, switch, or rename a theme

Open the theme selector to switch between Default and existing named themes. Choose New theme when you want to preserve a new combination of token values. You can rename an existing theme, or rename or discard a new theme before it is saved.

After Effects Workspace Motion Token theme menu showing Default, an existing Custom theme, and New theme — Switch themes or create a new one before customizing its token values

Edit values and save

Change the supported color, gradient, scalar, vector, text, or keyframed values you need. Each edit appears in the player immediately.

After a value changes, the footer shows Save Changes. Saving produces an updated Workspace version of the dotLottie file:

Changes made to Default update the file's base slot values.
Changes made to an existing named theme overwrite that theme's values.
A new theme is added to the file with its current name and values.

After Effects Workspace Motion Token panel with a customized theme, an edited color value, and Save Changes highlighted — Save the current token and theme values as an updated version of the Workspace file

Continue in Lottie Creator

The After Effects plugin can edit existing token values and manage themes, but it does not create new token bindings. Select Open in Creator from the file header when you need to add Motion Tokens or continue editing the animation in Lottie Creator.

A tokenized Workspace animation in the After Effects plugin connected to the same file's Motion Tokens table in Lottie Creator — Open the Workspace file in Creator to add tokens or continue editing the animation and its themes

You can also create Motion Tokens while converting a design with the LottieFiles plugin for Figma.