To add a background in Procreate Animation Assist, drag the frame that holds your background art to the leftmost position in the Timeline, tap it to open Frame Options, and switch on Background. That frame then sits underneath every other frame for the whole animation. Procreate allows only one Background (and one Foreground) at a time, and both are static. If the background has to move, you need a grouped-layer workaround or a compositing app.

Quick Steps: Setting a Background in Animation Assist

1. Turn on Animation Assist from Actions > Canvas > Animation Assist.
2. Draw or insert your background art on a frame (Actions > Add > Insert a file works for imported plates).
3. Drag that frame to the far left of the Timeline.
4. Tap the frame once to select it, then tap it again to open Frame Options.
5. Toggle Background on.

Every frame you add after this appears to the right of the Background frame. In the Layers panel, the background layer locks to the bottom of the stack and can't be dragged above other layers. To undo it, tap the same toggle again and the frame returns to being a normal frame.

How the Background Frame Behaves

Knowing the rules up front saves you from fighting the interface later.

• Leftmost only. Only the frame in the first position can be a Background. If the toggle doesn't appear, the frame isn't leftmost.
• One at a time. Setting a new Background means releasing the old one or moving another frame into first position.
• Always underneath. Content in other frames always overlaps the Background, and new layers can't be moved beneath it.
• Static by design. The same image holds for the full duration. It doesn't cycle or change per frame.

Before this feature existed, Procreate offered only a solid-color backdrop, and users asked for a paintable layer instead. The Background toggle is the answer to that request, so any older tutorial that tells you to fake it by copying layers into every frame is describing the previous workflow.

Preparing the Background Art

A few decisions before you toggle anything will make the animation easier to finish.

Match the canvas to your delivery size

Your canvas size (along with your device storage) determines how many layers (and therefore frames) Procreate can hold, and it's also your output resolution. You can check the available layer count under Actions > Canvas > Crop & Resize. A 2000 × 2000 px canvas is a reasonable test size, but if the animation will end up in a 16:9 timeline in After Effects or Premiere Pro, build the canvas to that aspect ratio from the start. Cropping a square animation later wastes pixels.

Keep the background on its own frame

Paint the background on the frame that will become the Background, and keep character or prop animation on separate frames. If you paint both on one frame and then promote it, every animated element becomes part of the locked plate and can't change.

Leave room for the action

Because the background never moves, think about where the animated element will travel. Leave clean areas of value and color where the characters will pass so they don't disappear into the plate. Onion skin settings help here. Showing around three to four frames of onion skin, at an opacity that's visible but not distracting, lets you check how your drawings sit against the plate while you work.

Adding a Foreground for Depth

The mirror feature is Foreground. Move a frame to the rightmost position, open Frame Options, and toggle Foreground. That frame appears over the top of every other frame, and it locks to the top of the Layers panel.

This is the quickest way to get a basic layered look in Procreate: a sky or room behind the action, and foliage, a window frame, or a vignette in front of it. As with the Background, you can have only one Foreground, so combine everything you want in front into a single frame.

Controlling Timing with Hold Duration

Once the background is in place, the pacing of the foreground animation matters more, because the static plate makes every timing mistake obvious. Procreate's Hold Duration slider keeps a single drawing on screen for multiple frames, up to a maximum of 120.

Do the math instead of guessing. At 12 frames per second, a one-second hold is 12 frames. The Timeline shows the hold as greyed-out frames, so a five-frame hold displays five greyed frames. Drag the slider back to None to remove it.

Holds are also useful for the background plate itself in the grouped-layer approach below, where one background can be duplicated across several frames.

When the Background Needs to Move

The Background toggle can't pan, scroll, or change. For those cases you have two realistic options.

Option 1: The group workaround

Place each animation frame in its own group, with a copy of the background layer inside each group:

• Group → animated layer + background layer
• Group → animated layer + background layer
• Group → animated layer + background layer

Each group exports as a single animation frame. Because the background is duplicated per group, you can shift, redraw, or alter it from one group to the next, which gives you a moving background. The cost is time and layer count. Each copy consumes layers, and edits to the background have to be repeated across every group. A faster variant is to duplicate a whole group, then clear or modify just the animated layer.

Option 2: Animate the background elsewhere

For camera moves, parallax, or any complex motion, treat Procreate as a drawing tool and do the move in a compositor. Export the character animation separately, bring in the background as a still, and animate the position, scale, and parallax in After Effects. One community suggestion is that once you need a moving background, it may be time to move to more sophisticated compositing software.

Exporting for a Compositing Pipeline

If the final deliverable lives in After Effects, Premiere Pro, or Nuke, there are two good ways to export.

• Baked export. Export with the Background active and bring the result in as a finished clip. This is the simplest path for social content and quick animatics.
• Separated export. Export the character animation without the locked background plate, as an image sequence with transparency where possible, and bring the background in as its own layer. This lets you add depth of field, color grade the plate independently, add camera moves, and swap backgrounds without redrawing anything.

Before committing to a pipeline, run a short test export. Confirm that transparency survives in your chosen format, that the frame rate matches your composition, and that the frame count lines up with your holds.

Where Styleframe Fits

Backgrounds are often the slowest part of a hand-drawn animation, because every plate has to match the look of the characters. Styleframe is an AI video tool that can be used alongside Procreate for this kind of work.

You keep your compositing workflow and use Styleframe only where it saves time. As with any generative tool, check the output against your own drawings and adjust references until it holds up on close inspection.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

The Background toggle is missing. The selected frame isn't in the leftmost position. Drag it to the far left of the Timeline and open Frame Options again.

New layers won't go below the background. This is expected. The Background locks to the bottom of the stack, and everything created later sits above it.

My background shows in exports when I wanted transparency. The Background is part of the animation. Toggle it off, or export a version without it, if you need to composite the plate later.

The animation feels stiff against the background. Check your holds. A static plate makes uneven timing visible, so recalculate holds against the frame rate rather than adjusting by eye.

I need a different background mid-animation. The single Background can't change. Use the group workaround, or split the piece into two animations and join them in your editor.

Summary

Setting a background in Procreate is a small operation. Put the frame in first position, open Frame Options, and toggle Background. Add a Foreground in last position for depth, tune your timing with holds, and use the grouped-layer method only when you truly need the background to change. For camera moves and parallax, take the animation into After Effects or Nuke and build the background there, optionally with a tool like Styleframe.

To add a background in Procreate Animation Assist, drag the frame that holds your background art to the leftmost position in the Timeline, tap it to open Frame Options, and switch on Background. That frame then sits underneath every other frame for the whole animation. Procreate allows only one Background (and one Foreground) at a time, and both are static. If the background has to move, you need a grouped-layer workaround or a compositing app.

Quick Steps: Setting a Background in Animation Assist

1. Turn on Animation Assist from Actions > Canvas > Animation Assist.
2. Draw or insert your background art on a frame (Actions > Add > Insert a file works for imported plates).
3. Drag that frame to the far left of the Timeline.
4. Tap the frame once to select it, then tap it again to open Frame Options.
5. Toggle Background on.

Every frame you add after this appears to the right of the Background frame. In the Layers panel, the background layer locks to the bottom of the stack and can't be dragged above other layers. To undo it, tap the same toggle again and the frame returns to being a normal frame.

How the Background Frame Behaves

Knowing the rules up front saves you from fighting the interface later.

• Leftmost only. Only the frame in the first position can be a Background. If the toggle doesn't appear, the frame isn't leftmost.
• One at a time. Setting a new Background means releasing the old one or moving another frame into first position.
• Always underneath. Content in other frames always overlaps the Background, and new layers can't be moved beneath it.
• Static by design. The same image holds for the full duration. It doesn't cycle or change per frame.

Before this feature existed, Procreate offered only a solid-color backdrop, and users asked for a paintable layer instead. The Background toggle is the answer to that request, so any older tutorial that tells you to fake it by copying layers into every frame is describing the previous workflow.

Preparing the Background Art

A few decisions before you toggle anything will make the animation easier to finish.

Match the canvas to your delivery size

Your canvas size (along with your device storage) determines how many layers (and therefore frames) Procreate can hold, and it's also your output resolution. You can check the available layer count under Actions > Canvas > Crop & Resize. A 2000 × 2000 px canvas is a reasonable test size, but if the animation will end up in a 16:9 timeline in After Effects or Premiere Pro, build the canvas to that aspect ratio from the start. Cropping a square animation later wastes pixels.

Keep the background on its own frame

Paint the background on the frame that will become the Background, and keep character or prop animation on separate frames. If you paint both on one frame and then promote it, every animated element becomes part of the locked plate and can't change.

Leave room for the action

Because the background never moves, think about where the animated element will travel. Leave clean areas of value and color where the characters will pass so they don't disappear into the plate. Onion skin settings help here. Showing around three to four frames of onion skin, at an opacity that's visible but not distracting, lets you check how your drawings sit against the plate while you work.

Adding a Foreground for Depth

The mirror feature is Foreground. Move a frame to the rightmost position, open Frame Options, and toggle Foreground. That frame appears over the top of every other frame, and it locks to the top of the Layers panel.

This is the quickest way to get a basic layered look in Procreate: a sky or room behind the action, and foliage, a window frame, or a vignette in front of it. As with the Background, you can have only one Foreground, so combine everything you want in front into a single frame.

Controlling Timing with Hold Duration

Once the background is in place, the pacing of the foreground animation matters more, because the static plate makes every timing mistake obvious. Procreate's Hold Duration slider keeps a single drawing on screen for multiple frames, up to a maximum of 120.

Do the math instead of guessing. At 12 frames per second, a one-second hold is 12 frames. The Timeline shows the hold as greyed-out frames, so a five-frame hold displays five greyed frames. Drag the slider back to None to remove it.

Holds are also useful for the background plate itself in the grouped-layer approach below, where one background can be duplicated across several frames.

When the Background Needs to Move

The Background toggle can't pan, scroll, or change. For those cases you have two realistic options.

Option 1: The group workaround

Place each animation frame in its own group, with a copy of the background layer inside each group:

• Group → animated layer + background layer
• Group → animated layer + background layer
• Group → animated layer + background layer

Each group exports as a single animation frame. Because the background is duplicated per group, you can shift, redraw, or alter it from one group to the next, which gives you a moving background. The cost is time and layer count. Each copy consumes layers, and edits to the background have to be repeated across every group. A faster variant is to duplicate a whole group, then clear or modify just the animated layer.

Option 2: Animate the background elsewhere

For camera moves, parallax, or any complex motion, treat Procreate as a drawing tool and do the move in a compositor. Export the character animation separately, bring in the background as a still, and animate the position, scale, and parallax in After Effects. One community suggestion is that once you need a moving background, it may be time to move to more sophisticated compositing software.

Exporting for a Compositing Pipeline

If the final deliverable lives in After Effects, Premiere Pro, or Nuke, there are two good ways to export.

• Baked export. Export with the Background active and bring the result in as a finished clip. This is the simplest path for social content and quick animatics.
• Separated export. Export the character animation without the locked background plate, as an image sequence with transparency where possible, and bring the background in as its own layer. This lets you add depth of field, color grade the plate independently, add camera moves, and swap backgrounds without redrawing anything.

Before committing to a pipeline, run a short test export. Confirm that transparency survives in your chosen format, that the frame rate matches your composition, and that the frame count lines up with your holds.

Where Styleframe Fits

Backgrounds are often the slowest part of a hand-drawn animation, because every plate has to match the look of the characters. Styleframe is an AI video tool that can be used alongside Procreate for this kind of work.

You keep your compositing workflow and use Styleframe only where it saves time. As with any generative tool, check the output against your own drawings and adjust references until it holds up on close inspection.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

The Background toggle is missing. The selected frame isn't in the leftmost position. Drag it to the far left of the Timeline and open Frame Options again.

New layers won't go below the background. This is expected. The Background locks to the bottom of the stack, and everything created later sits above it.

My background shows in exports when I wanted transparency. The Background is part of the animation. Toggle it off, or export a version without it, if you need to composite the plate later.

The animation feels stiff against the background. Check your holds. A static plate makes uneven timing visible, so recalculate holds against the frame rate rather than adjusting by eye.

I need a different background mid-animation. The single Background can't change. Use the group workaround, or split the piece into two animations and join them in your editor.

Summary

Setting a background in Procreate is a small operation. Put the frame in first position, open Frame Options, and toggle Background. Add a Foreground in last position for depth, tune your timing with holds, and use the grouped-layer method only when you truly need the background to change. For camera moves and parallax, take the animation into After Effects or Nuke and build the background there, optionally with a tool like Styleframe.