MotherFluxer Docs

Every item's own settings ​

Every item — a picture, a clip, a text, a shape, a drawing, a group — holds the settings below, whichever editor it is in. Its place, size, turn, perspective and crop are on its Transform menu; whether it shows and whether it can be moved are on its row in the Layers list or the timeline; a member's distance stands in its group's depth look, and a still's moment in a look that moves over time. Its bend is its Deform: the card in the Form section at the end of a still's Effects menu, and a section of a video item's Animate Recipe. On a video, the point it turns and scales about, Pivot X and Pivot Y, stands in that Recipe's Animations section, and its start, length and in point are where its row stands and is trimmed on the timeline.

Transform ​

  • Left — Where the left edge of the item's box stands, in the page's pixels.
  • Top — Where the top edge of the item's box stands, in the page's pixels.
  • Width — How wide the item's box is, in the page's pixels.
  • Height — How tall the item's box is, in the page's pixels.
  • Rotation — How far the item is turned about its box's centre, in degrees either way.
  • Flip horizontal — Whether the item is mirrored left to right.
    • Not mirrored · Mirrored
  • Flip vertical — Whether the item is mirrored top to bottom.
    • Not mirrored · Mirrored
  • Tilt across — How far the item leans back about its upright axis, so its left and right sides recede.
  • Tilt down — How far the item leans back about its level axis, so its top and bottom recede.
  • Corner pin — Where each of the item's four corners is pinned, moved from its box's own corner by a share of the box.
  • Crop — The part of the item's whole picture its box shows.

Layers ​

  • Hidden — Whether the item is left out of the picture: hidden, it keeps its place in time and its settings.
  • Locked — Whether the item is held where it is: locked, it cannot be moved, resized, turned or deleted.

Distance ​

  • Distance — How far back the item stands in its group's depth, from nearest to farthest: what the group's Depth look reads.

Moment ​

  • Moment — The instant a still item's looks that move with time are held at, in seconds — one for every such look of it.

Timing ​

  • Start — Where the item starts on the timeline, in seconds from the head.
  • Length — How long the item is on screen, in seconds.
  • In point — Where in its source the item starts — a clip's footage, a sound's audio — in seconds of that source.

Deform ​

  • Strength — How much of the bend shows.
  • Across — How many cells the bending grid has across.
  • Down — How many cells the bending grid has down.
  • Brush size — How wide the bending brush is.

Animations ​

  • Pivot X — Where the item turns and scales about, across from its own centre.
  • Pivot Y — Where the item turns and scales about, down from its own centre.

Crop an item ​

Every picture, emoji, shape, drawing, group and 3D object has the crop button at the start of its Transform tab's first row, beside flip and, on a picture that can be cut, Splice; text, a table, a mask and a blur have none. Press it and the whole item appears where it sits, with the part you are keeping outlined and the rest dimmed. Drag a side or a corner to change what you keep, or drag inside the outline to move it; with the outline selected, the arrow keys move it one step at a time (hold Shift for ten). Two buttons stand in a small container under the item (or above it, when the menu along the bottom would cover it): the highlighted check mark keeps that part, and the cross, Escape, or clicking anything else leaves the item as it was.

Nothing moves, and nothing changes its look. The item's box shrinks to the part you kept, and what you kept stays exactly where it was, turned or flipped items included — its effects, its perspective tilt and its Border shape stay exactly as they were too, as if you had laid a window over the finished item: a circle cropped on one side shows a part of that circle, a vignette keeps its centre, a tilt keeps its plane. Only an edge follows the new outline, so a glow or an outline hugs the crop line.

Cropping never throws anything away. Press the crop button again and the whole item comes back with your last choice outlined, so you can widen it or pick a different part. Each crop is one step of Undo. Choosing a different picture on the Image tab starts it uncropped, and a 3D object keeps its crop through every redraw.

Crop a group. A group's crop cuts every member at the group's edge, and the group's box and its Transform numbers show the part you kept. Turn or move the group afterwards and the cut goes with it.

On a video a clip's first row is the crop button, flip, Reframe and Splice, and captions have no crop either. A cropped clip keeps its motion, its effects and its timing; only the part you cut away stops showing. When a cropped group would be left holding a single clip, the question it asks first tells you the crop will be dropped.