AV News 193 - August 2013
You are most likely to be using these features when you are doing a quick
job, with no need to be too precise. However, you can be very precise by
changing values within the 'Animation' tab. If you click on this tab you will see
that there are a number of parameters which have been changing by dragging
the image around. So, for example, if you drag the corner of an image to
magnify it, then you should see the value in the boxes changing. As
an alternative, you can change the values in the variables boxes, either by
using the appropriate up/down arrows or by typing a value into the box.
· will move the image right/left and down/up. The values incidentally
are percentages of the image size and movements can be negative or
positive values. For the moment ignore the buttons which say ,
we'll come back to their use in another article.
· has two value boxes which are normally linked so that the image
zooms in width as you change the height value in the first box. However,
you will see a little square button between the two value boxes, which
looks as if it is pushed in. If you click on this the two values for zoom can
now be changed independently.
· behaves in a different way. It has an arrow alongside the value
box which, on clicking, brings up a slider bar allowing the image to be
rotated 360° in either direction. But it's almost impossible to control this
with any precision (for me anyway!), so if you need a precise rotation,
type a value into the box. Not that it makes any sense in this context, but
you can type in a value greater than 360.
· controls where the centre point of the image is located (largely
relevant to rotation).
OK, so you've experimented and have now got a weird set of values in the
boxes. A nice feature is that by clicking on the name of any of the variables,
e.g. the word 'Zoom', this brings the value back to its default (100 for Zoom
and 0 for Pan,
Rotate and Centre).
If you're feeling
really adventurous
you can even correct
those
converging
verticals.
To do this you
need to change 3D
parameters which
first came in with
version 6.0. The
'dragging' method of
doing this is quick
and easy.
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