I have just attempted to move around an imported image on a bitmap layer. But when I select the hand tool the camera moves with the image. How do I lock the camera so I can drag the bitmap image around and zoom in and out? Thanks in advance!
@Goresmoker Hi, welcome to the forum. Are you using the latest version 0.7.0 or above?
If not please download the stable release to make sense of the explanation below
If you want some extra improvements over that version visit the nightly build page to get development versions which are more fresh, but might have undetected issues so make sure to always save a backup project file.
If you are using the latest version, then let me explain briefly what’s the supported workflow.
Workspace & Camera View
When you have a “drawing” layer selected you will automatically have the “workspace view” mode enabled. This allows you to drag, zoom and tilt the canvas around with the hand tool.
You will always see the camera outline for reference because the drawing surface or “paper” extends far and one could end up drawing on a place where the camera is not pointing at.
To me a good way to think about this is: You have a portable canvas with clippers, on top of it you will always see a stack of paper (layers) where you draw a single drawing on each frame, and lastly a camera on top which has its base fixed to the canvas, but has a gizmo to move independently (camera layer)
What you see would be this
- CAMERA (Outline)
- LAYER + DRAWING (ON CURRENT FRAME)
- CANVAS (It’s always transparent, but looks white by default only in the editor. You can change how it looks in the preferences by changing the background)
After selecting a bitmap or vector layer, if you use the hand tool it’s as if you are actually moving the canvas or even your desk towards or away from you.
The camera and paper stack are fixed to the canvas by default, which is why the camera outline moves around when you use your “hand” to push or drag.
However when the software captures each individual drawing every frame to create a video, it will ONLY use what is inside the camera outline to show the animation.
Moving the camera
Now, If you want to move the actual camera in a way that is shown on the final video, you have to select the camera layer first. In the recent version we do not use the hand tool, but rather use the MOVE TOOL (White Silver Arrow icon) to change its properties.
Once you select this tool and the camera layer, you will see a widget over the camera outline. You can “scale” (zoom), rotate (tilt) and translate (pan) the camera. This is the only way to “detach” the camera away from the canvas and the drawing. You can also animate the camera.
You can find a video overview of this new feature in the thread below.
Right now we can’t move the paper (layer) independently (which I hope we can one day) but to move the drawings away from the camera outline you would have to use the selection tool, cutoff the part you want and move it frame by frame.
I hope all of this made sense, if not I’ll see if I can record a quick tutorial or something. Have a good week.
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