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I have downloaded a free model for my current project and spotted those different colors on Scale, Rotation, Location, and other properties.

What do these different colors signify? What is the meaning of various possible color overlays on UI properties buttons?

The very same model after ⎈ Ctrl + C ⎈ Ctrl + V to my project file disappeared after a while.

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Button colors reflect their respective property current animation state.

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  • $\color{#777}{⬤}$ Grey/Theme Colored - Unchanged, static, non animated value
  • $\color{#3B1}{⬤}$ Green - Property is animated but not keyframed at the current frame (notice the diamond outline decorator to the right, click on it to keyframe at current frame)
  • $\color{#CC0}{⬤}$ Yellow - Property is animated and keyframed at the current frame (notice the filled diamond decorator to the right)
  • $\color{#C80}{⬤}$ Orange - Property is animated but the value is changed and no longer matches the evaluated/keyframed animation for the current frame. This happens when you changed the property but haven't yet keyframed the new value, it will jump back to the keyframed/evaluated value stored in the file if a new keyframed is not inserted, leading to potential data loss. Rendering will also reflect the saved state, rather that what you currently see in the UI. The stronger orange color should warn the user of its unsaved state.
  • $\color{#3AB}{⬤}$ Teal/Blue - Property is overridden. This is only for libraries, or linked data from other external blend files. It means the value differs from the predefined default stored in the remote library, and has a new locally set data override (notice the overridden arrow decorator to the right).
  • $\color{#92C}{⬤}$ Purple - Property has a Driver, an expression or simple math function that automatically controls its value according to input calculated from other properties/objects (notice the driven arrow decorator to the right).
  • $\color{#A00}{⬤}$ Red - Error state (used more frequently in modifiers or constrains). The property either has an invalid value, is disabled or is otherwise producing no visible effect. In the example below a Subdivision modifier has zero subdivisions both for viewport and rendered output and is thus effectively disabled for all intents and purposes. Despite no harmful errors occurring its name is shown red warning of its currently ineffective output.

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Have in mind that all these colours are themeable though, so while most default themes shipped with Blender try to stay close to this scheme, third party ones could potentially look completely different under a custom configuration.

If in doubt check Edit > Preferences > Themes > User Interface > State for current palette.

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It means that some keyframes have been created for the selected object and for these particular values. The light brown means that your timeline cursor is placed on a frame where you've created keyframes. The brown means that you've transformed your object (here the object scales) but haven't saved these values with any keyframes for the moment.

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