# Layers

In the previous tutorial, you made a first simple animation by changing the attributes of primitive objects such as its position, color, and size. These simple types, however, are seldomly sufficient to create advanced characters and objects. To do so, Synfig uses Layers. They are similar to layers known from other drawing application such as the GIMP, for instance.

However, Synfig is different to simple layers in at least two respects:

1. You can organize layers into hierarchical groups.

2. You can use upper layers to change the behaviour (or look) or underlying layers.

Doing so is quite easy. Let's look at a simple example.

1. Create a new file with 0 duration. There's no need to bother with a timeline at this point.

2. Create a simple rectangle.

&using.sgml; &combining.sgml;