Program overview > Manual input

Manual Input helps you place objects in the Layout Designer, resize objects, and time motion markers in animations, route animations, and camera pans/zooms.

Open Manual input Ultimate Stages

You call up Manual input with the key combination Ctrl + M or via the context menu (right-click) in the Layout designer. Double-clicking an object in the Layout designer also opens Manual input.

Manual input

The Path settings always refer to the entire path.

Time distribution: The time distribution of the markers of a path can be individualized or evenly.
With the "evenly" time distribution, there is only one start and end time and any number of marks without time in between. The path then runs at a uniform speed. In the Layout designer, the marks appear with hash marks (#1, #2, #3, etc.).

Timestamp: The duration of a path can be specified with a time unit (time in seconds) or defined via the object duration (Percent of object duration).
If the option Percent of object duration is selected, paths scale along with it when the duration of the object is changed. In the layout designer, marks appear with percentage signs (e.g. 0%, 40%, 100%).

Timing Stages : The path timing can be controlled by a curve. With the No value setting, the playback is linear between the first and the last mark. With a curve, the path can run faster/slower and forward/backward at defined times.

Active motion mark: Select the mark or the respective object to check or adjust the values.

Type of mark: The Smooth option is enabled by default. The change of direction in a motion path is smooth, and the motion starts and ends more slowly. With three soft marks, you see a curved curve in the Layout Designer.
With the Hard mark type, a change of direction occurs abruptly, a movement proceeds at a constant speed. With three hard marks, you can see an angle in the Layout Designer.
With the Bezier selection, you will find additional handles at each marker to influence the bending of the soft curve.
With the Jump mark type, there is no movement between the marks.

symbol-info

To customize the mark type for multiple marks at once, right-click a mark in the Layout designer and select Select All Marks. Once all marks are selected, right-click again and select Curve type and the desired type.

Size of predecessor: If you activate this option, the size of the previous position frame is adopted when a camera pan or motion path is executed.

Time: The time value of the selected mark appears here. You can adjust it by keyboard input if you have clicked in the field before.

Idle time: Specify how long a marker should be displayed with the selected value.
For route animations, this allows you to pause at a location before the route continues to be drawn. For camera pans, a pause time can be used to pause at a section of the image before the pan continues.

The units of the Manual input can be switched. To do this, click on the unit in the input field and select from the options offered.

Coordinates	The Layout Designer works with a virtual resolution of 100x100 percent. Since the output is always variable, no fixed resolution is used here. An image in the Layout designer is located exactly in the middle at: Percent: X=50% / Y=50% / Z=50%. Per thousand: X=500‰ / Y=500‰ / Z=500‰ 0 to 1: X=0.5• / Y=0.5• / Z=0.5•
Size	If both values are 100% (or 1000‰ or 1•), the object frame fills the screen.
Rotation	Enter the rotation angle for the respective axis here. You can enter the value directly via the keyboard or adjust it with the arrow keys. The angle can be specified in degrees, rotations or percent. A "flat" rotation of an object, clockwise or counterclockwise, is achieved via the Z axis.
Rotation center	If you want to rotate your object around the center point, enter the value Y=50% and Y=50%. For example, to rotate the object about the lower left selection frame edge, select X=0% and Y=100%.
Edges	The value 0 means here that the edge is on the left or above. Counting is always to the right or down. This means that the edge at the value 100% is located at the very right or at the very bottom. If a value above 100% is entered, the respective edge is located in the invisible area.
Relative input	If you activate the option, the values will always be applied relative to the currently existing position.

symbol-info

Depth sorting by means of the Z coordinate is effective only within a 3D scene. Outside of this, the depth sorting is only done by the sequence in the Timeline tracks.