Overview
The tools come ready to use. Most properties of the tool can be customized in run-time if needed. Only the edited tool is changed. When the tool is removed, all changes are lost.
Tools can be customized and saved for later use. All customized tools are available in the Custom tab of the Tool administration dialog. Tools in the Custom tab and in the Toolbar are independent of one another. Changing properties of a tool in the Toolbar doesn't affect tools in the Custom tab and vice versa.
Basics
Create a custom tool
Drag a tool from either the default tab of administration dialog or from the Toolbar and drop it in the custom tab. The new tool can be renamed by pressing Rename in popup menu of tool or by pressing F2.
Clone custom tool
Drag the tool from custom tab of administration dialog and drop it back to the same tab while holding the Ctrl key.
Remove custom tool
Drag a tool from the custom tab and drop it to the default tab.
Tool Customization
Open the popup menu for the tool (right click or touch and hold for about 2 seconds) and select one of the following.
- Tool tracking
- Tool keying
Tool tracking
Paint tools can use two tracking types:
- No tracking: Graphics drawn keep their position on the screen
- Motion tracking: Graphics move together with the background video, as though it is part of the scene.
Different tools support different sets of tracking modes. If more than a single tracking type is supported, it is possible to choose actual tracking type using tool popup menu (click RMB on the tool button or long touch).
Tool keying
Paint tools can be keyed. Keying can changed during run of the application. The menu is available when given tool supports both keying modes.
When using keyed tools, make sure the chroma key is properly set.
- On = The tool is keyed. If adaptive keying is supported by the tool (all except freehand strokes), keying is not used when graphics are placed to an area, where the key is bad or empty.
- Off = Tool is not keyed.
Tool properties
Here you can find the rest of the editable properties of the tool. All items have tooltips with a short description. Properties for each tool are described in the Tool Reference chapter.
All properties are initialized with their default values. The bold name of the property indicates that the value of the property differs from the default value (has been changed).
Bold property category (tab) indicates it contains properties with non-default value.
Shadows
Paint tools are capable of casting shadows (with some exceptions like Offside, Pause etc.). Shadows are rendered when both global and per-tool switch is enabled. Shadows are enabled on most tools and disabled by global switch by default.
You can enable/disable shadows on the tools in the Tool Properties dialog by switching the value of ShadowEnabled property.
Global shadow properties
The dialog with shadows can be opened from the Administration menu by the Settings menu item.
The settings are global and applied on all drawings. The settings are stored within current profile (see Tool Profiles).
| Note: High values of Blur radius might cause performance drop and are not recommended. |
Global shadow property descriptions
| Property | Description |
| Enabled | Enables/disables shadow rendering. The shadow is rendered when both this and ShadowEnabled on Tool is ON. |
| UseLightDirection | If checked, light direction will be used to calculate shadow position. See Lighting description. Applies to 3D tools only. |
| Blur radius | Controls level of blurring. Lower values cause the shadow to look sharper. |
| Intensity | Intensity of the shadow. Lower values cause the shadow to be less visible. |
| Angle | Angle in degrees of the cast shadow. With 0 the shadow is cast in the 12 o'clock direction, 180 causes the shadow to be cast in the 6 o'clock direction. |
| Distance | Distance of the shadow from the drawing. |
Discolor Effects
Some tools use a discolor effect for the background (Zoom tool, CutOut tool, PichFocus Tool...). You can change the parameters of the discolor filter in the Discolor tab of the Settings dialog. Open the Administration menu menu on the Clear button and pick the 'Render effects' menu item.
| Effect | Description |
| Contrast | Contrast of the background. |
| Brightness | Brightness of the background. |
| BWFactor | Black/White factor. 1 means fully B&W, 0 means that no B&W effect is applied. |
| Blur | Amount of blur applied to the background. 0 means none, 10 means total blur. |
| Color | Allows you to set the color applied to the background. |
Lighting
Defines one global source of light, which allows 3D tools to be correctly shaded, cast shadow and reflect light.
| Description | |
| Angle | Angle in degrees of the light. With 0 the shadow is cast in the 12 o'clock direction, 180 causes the shadow to be cast in the 6 o'clock direction. |
| Altitude | Altitude of the light in degrees. 0 means 'on the surface', 90 means infinitely high. |
| Env. Texture | You might define an environmental texture, to use for faking reflections and more realistic results. Lightning without any environmental texture causes poor visual results. |
Slow-mo and Pause Default Duration
Each time you press a button to create a pause or slo-mo sequence, the sequence is created with this predefined duration. You can change the duration of each such sequence any time later.
Tool Profiles
Profile are sets of tools displayed in the toolbar. You can have several predefined profiles and change the actual profile in one step.
Administration menu contains the following actions:
- Open Profile – Menu with existing profiles shows up.
- New profile – New empty profile with a user-specified name is created.
- Save profile as – Current profile is saved under user-specified name.
All changes you make to the current profile (add/remove tools) are automatically saved.
Toolbar capacity might be lower than the number of tools defined in the profile. In this instance a warning dialog is open with the following choices:
- Ignore – Tools that don't fit the toolbar are removed. This change is not saved into the profile until the toolbar is altered manually.
- Create copy – Creates and automatically selects a copy of current profile, tools that don't fit into the toolbar are removed.
Default Tool
Default tool is automatically selected when the application is started and each time the Clear button is pressed.
This tool might have different button icon to easily identify which tool is actually default (depends on current skin).
- Set a tool to be Default by checking the Default tool item in the popup menu for a tool.
- Unset a tool to be Default by unchecking the Default tool item in the popup menu for actually default tool.
In/Out Effects
Special effects can be added when graphics starts or finishes its production length.
Managing effects
Effects are managed in the Effects dialog that can be opened from the administration dialog (right mouse button on the Clear button) and selecting In/Out Effects.
The list on the left side contains all the effects. It has these columns:
- Name – name of the effect
- Style – animation style of the effect
- Clip – whether the effect it has an associated clip
- Used – whether this effect is used by a tool in the current profile
The dialog allows you to create a new effect, clone existing, remove existing. The rename function is opened by double clicking on the effect or by pressing F2.
Parameters of the selected effect can be set in the panel on the right side. Default effects can not be changed. “Default Effect” is set to a tool that is added to the toolbar.
Using effects
Open a tool property editor, switch to the ”In/Out effects” tab and select an effect from the combo boxes.
Value “-none-” means that no effect will be applied. An exclamation mark next to the combo box indicates that the effect animation style is not supported by the current tool. It means that the effect animation will not be performed. If a clip is set, is always played.
The cog button on the right side opens a popup menu with additional commands. The effects dialog will be shown after choosing any of the options.
Parameters of effects
|
Animation |
|
| Parameter |
Description |
| Style |
|
| Duration | Duration of animation in frames. |
| Delay | Delay of the animation related to begin/end. It allows you to play clip before running the animation. |
| Sequential | A part of a graphic is animated right after the animation of the previous part is finished. Is used only when the placed graphic is made from parts. |
| Reverse | Flips direction of the Draw animation. Only visible when Style is set to Draw. |
| Pivot | Pivot of Scale animation defined in bounding box of graphic. [0,0] = bottom left corner, [1,1] = top left corner. Only visible when Style is set to Scale. |
Clip
| Description | |
| File |
|
| Position |
|
| Mode |
|
| Blend mode |
|
| Opacity |
|
| Size |
|
Using effects with text
When using any tools with a text input and .gtc background (e. g. Tag tool), the text animates in with the first frame of the background, and animates out with the final frame of the background.
It is often required to control fade in/out of the text since the .gtc might already contain a specially rendered in/out effects.
You can set the offsets in the Tool Property editor, Text tab altering values of these properties:
| Fade Type | Description |
| TextFadeInDelay | Defines the delay between production start of the background and fade-in of the text (e.g. setting a value of 10 means that the text starts fade-in with 10th frame of the .gtc background). |
| TextFadeOutPreroll | Defines a pre roll of the production end of the text (e. g. having .gtc clip 100 frames long and setting value of 10 means that the text starts to fade-out with 90th frame of the clip). |
Tool Presets
Preset settings
Tools can have a number of back end presets built inside it. These presets have different settings such as colors, settings for animations and files. You can access them in the tool context menu by right clicking it. Currently applied preset(s) will be marked with a checkmark.
Fast preset selection
Presets can have fast selection enabled. These presets won't be shown in the Presets context menu mentioned above but instead each time the user clicks into the preview to create a drawing,
A popup menu with available preset options will be shown. He then selects one to apply it before the drawing is created or chooses the <Unchanged> option to simply use the tool as is.