Presets & Templates

Presets and templates give you quick starting points and motion profiles. They are accessible from the Project tab in the overlay panel.

Starter Templates

When starting fresh, you can choose from:

Template	Layers	Description
3-Layer	3	Background, middle, and foreground layers using the sample images
4-Layer	4	Background, middle-back, middle-front, and foreground layers
Blank	0	Empty project — add layers manually

Templates load sample images from public/media/ (background.png, middle.png, middle-back.png, middle-front.png, foreground.png) and set up layer geometry, motion, and scene/harmonics values for a balanced starting point.

Built-In Presets

Five motion presets are available, each tuning scene, harmonics, and per-layer motion/geometry differently:

Preset	Character
Default	Balanced baseline — moderate rotation, lerp, and float
Dreamy	Slower, floatier motion with stronger sine-wave harmonics
Responsive	Higher lerp values for snappier, more responsive pointer tracking
Subtle	Minimal rotation and movement — a calmer, understated effect
Dramatic	Stronger rotation, bigger movement ranges, and more pronounced depth shifts

Apply Strategy

When applying a preset, you choose how it interacts with your current layers:

Strategy	Behavior
Replace Layers	Replaces all layers with the preset's baseline layer set (resets geometry, motion, and images)
Keep Current Layers	Patches motion and scene values onto your existing layers, preserving your images and names. Layers are matched by presetKey first, then by index as a fallback

"Keep Current Layers" is useful when you've set up your own images and layer structure but want to try different motion profiles.

Undo After Apply

After applying any preset, a toast notification appears with an Undo action button. Clicking it restores the project to its state before the preset was applied (one-deep snapshot).

Custom Presets

You can save, load, and manage your own presets stored locally in the browser's IndexedDB:

Saving

Click Save Preset to capture the current project state as a named custom preset. If a preset with the same name exists, you'll be asked to confirm the overwrite.

Each custom preset stores:

• The preset name
• A full ParallaxDesignerProject snapshot (scene, harmonics, layers, UI state)
• Metadata: creation timestamp, last updated timestamp, layer count

Loading

Select a custom preset from the dropdown and click Load to restore it. The same apply strategies (Replace / Keep) are available for custom presets.

Deleting

Delete individual custom presets from the list, or use the danger zone to clear all local data including presets.

Storage

Custom presets are stored in IndexedDB (parallax-designer-assets-v2 database, customPresets table) and are local to the browser profile. They are not included in JSON exports — only the active project state is exported.

See Local Storage for more details on IndexedDB usage.