Table of Contents | Window & Palette Reference

Tool Palette | Inspector Palette | Modifier Palette | Movie Window



Inspector palette

The Inspector palette allows you to precisely view and adjust the characteristics of selected actors and effects. Inspector palette settings can be applied to multiple items of the same type within the same container (multiple actors within a sprite track or multiple tracks within a movie. for example), so you can easily edit groups of actors in unison. Because the information displayed in the Inspector palette is different for each modifier, you cannot edit multiple effects or actions simultaneously.

Although the Inspector palette displays different controls and fields, depending on what items are selected, this section is limited to those features that are available for actors: the material displayed for the effects and actions is listed in the Modifier palette section of the Window and Palette Reference.


Inspector palette

Start Time
The time at which the selected actors begin playing.


Start Time and Active pane

To change the start time of the selected items, type a new value in the Start Time field in the Inspector palette. The Other radio button will automatically be selected. All start times must be non-negative.

The preset start time for all actors and effects is 0.00 seconds, which starts the item at the same time as its container.

Duration
The length of time for which the selected actors will play.


Duration pane

To change the duration of the selected items, type a new value in the Duration field in the Inspector palette. The Other radio button will automatically be selected. All durations must be between 0.001 seconds and 9,999.0 seconds.

The preset duration for all actors and effects is Auto, which picks an appropriate duration based on the content. For time-based actors such as video and sound, the automatic duration is the length of the clip. Non-time-based actors such as still graphics do not have a natural length, so their automatic duration is fixed at 10 seconds. For an effect, the automatic duration is the duration of its actor.

Active
Whether or not the selected actors will be visible initially in the movie.


Start Time and Active pane

Inactive actors cannot be seen or heard, but they can still respond to events such as mouse overs. If you want to disable an actor entirely, you should place it in an inactive sprite track.

Ink
The ink to use when drawing the selected actors. Inks provide you with a powerful transparency, masking, and color-mixing mechanism for enhancing multimedia.


Ink pane

It is important to note that an actor can only have one ink at a time: if you give an actor an ink in the Inspector palette and use an ink effect (Ink, Fade, or Color Fade) from the modifier palette, the Inspector ink will only be used when the ink effect is inactive. For example, if you choose Reverse ink in the Inspector palette and then add a 0-100% Fade effect, the fade will be between 0 and 100% opaque rather than between 0 and 100% reversed.

Although inks can be applied to any actor, the result of non-opaque inks such as Translucent, Add Wrapped, or Tinted Glass may be unpredictable when applied to actors which are not contained within a sprite track. Inks (and particularly animated ink effects) should only be applied to actors within sprite tracks. The one exception to this is Composite, which is used to make partially transparent actors such as Ripples and GIF files transparent when they are placed directly in the movie.

The full list of inks available in Electrifier is as follows:


Ink pop-up menu

Opaque: The actor (and its background, if any) fully obscures the movie behind it.
Translucent: The actor partially obscures the movie behind it like a scrim.
Masked: The actor fully obscures the movie behind it, but its background is invisible, as if the actor were shot against a blue screen.
Masked ink is intended for actors with alpha channels, such as fire, clouds, and some PNG or Photoshop files.
Masked Translucent: The actor partially obscures the movie behind it, and its background is invisible, as if the actor were shot against a blue screen. Masked ink is intended for actors with alpha channels, such as fire, clouds, and some PNG or Photoshop files.
Tinted Glass: The actor tints the movie behind it like a stained-glass window: the new color will be the darker of those in the actor and in the background.
Tinted Light: The actor tints the movie behind it like a colored spotlight: the new color will be the brighter of those in the actor and in the background.
Reverse: The actor's colors are reversed like a photographic negative.
Transparent: One color within the actor is completely transparent (like a transparent GIF).
Add: The actor brightens the movie behind it: the new color will be the sum of that in the actor and that in the background, up to the maximum (white).
Subtract: The actor darkens the movie behind it: the new color will be the difference of that in the background and that in the actor, down to the minimum (black). Subtract ink doesn't work correctly in QuickTime 3.0--the actor is drawn in white. You may want to try Subtract Wrapped or Tinted Glass instead.
Opaque (simulate colors): The actor (and its background, if any) fully obscures the movie behind it, but the colors in the actor will be simulated using patterns of the available screen colors if the viewer is working in 256 or fewer colors.
Masked White Background: The actor fully obscures the movie behind it, but its background is invisible, as if the actor were shot against a blue screen. Masked White Background ink is intended for actors with automatically masked white backgrounds, such as Photoshop files.
Masked Black Background: The actor fully obscures the movie behind it, but its background is invisible, as if the actor were shot against a blue screen. Masked Black Background ink is intended for actors with automatically masked black backgrounds, such as some 3D modelling files.
Composite: The actor fully obscures the movie behind it, but its background is invisible, as if the actor were shot against a blue screen. Composite ink is intended for actors with no background, such as ripples, vector graphics, or transparent GIFs, which will be placed directly in the movie rather than inside a sprite track.
Add Wrapped: The actor brightens the movie behind it: the new color will be the sum of that in the actor and that in the background, with colors brighter than the maximum (white) wrapping around the color wheel.
Subtract Wrapped: The actor darkens the movie behind it: the new color will be the difference of that in the background and that in the actor, with colors darker than the minimum (black) wrapping around the color wheel.

Horizontal and Vertical Position
The horizontal and vertical coordinates of the selected actors, in pixels.


Horizontal and Vertical Position pane

When changing the coordinates of an actor, it helps to know the dimensions of the movie in pixels to ensure that the coordinates that you set fall with in the movie. The preset dimensions for a movie in Electrifier Pro are 464 pixels by 400 pixels, the approximate available area of a web page on a standard 14" monitor.

Horizontal and Vertical Scale
The horizontal and vertical scale of the selected actors, as a percentage


Horizontal and Vertical Scale pane

The preset value is 100%, which draws the actors at normal size. Percentage values higher than 100% will scale an actor larger, values lower than 100% will scale an actor smaller. The possible range of values is between 0% and 9,999%.

Rotation
The rotation angle of the selected actors, in degrees.


Rotation pane

The preset value is 0 degrees, which draws the actors with no rotation. The possible range of values is between -179 degrees and 179 degrees, where negative values rotate the actors counter-clockwise and positive values rotate them clockwise.

Horizontal and Vertical Slant
The horizontal and vertical slant of the selected actors, in degrees.


Horizontal and Vertical Slant pane

The preset value is 0 degrees, which draws the actor with no slant. The range of possible values is between -80 degrees and 80 degrees, where negative values slant an actor downward or to the left, and positive values slant the actor up or to the right.

Horizontal and Vertical Perspective
The horizontal and vertical perspective for an actor, in degrees.


Horizontal and Vertical Perspective, and Perspective Distance pane

The preset value is 0 degrees, which draws the actor with no perspective, as if it were sitting in the plane of the screen. The range of possible values is between -80 degrees and 80 degrees, where negative values tilt the actor down or to the left, and positive values tilt the actor up or to the right. Another way of thinking about it is that negative values push the left or bottom edge of the actor back into the screen, while positive angles push the right or top edge back.

Perspective Distance
The distance that the selected actors should appear be viewed from, as a percentage.


Horizontal and Vertical Perspective, and Perspective Distance pane

The preset value is 400%, which draws the perspective as if the actors were seen from a moderate distance. The range of possible values is between 100%, which draws the perspective as if an actor were seen from close up through a wide-angle lens, and 800%, which draws the perspective as if an actor were seen from farther away through a telephoto lens.

Volume
The volume of the selected actors, as a percentage.


Volume and Balance pane

The preset value is 100%, which plays the actor at its original volume. The range of possible values is between 0% and 200%, where values over 100% turn the volume up, and values under 100% turn the volume down.

Balance
The audio balance of the selected actors when playing back on a system with stereo sound.


Volume and Balance pane

The preset value is 0%, which plays the actors with their original balance. The range of possible values is between -100% and 100%, where negative values move that percentage of the balance to the left speaker and positive values move that percentage of the balance to the right speaker.

For more information

To learn how to use the Inspector palette to set an actor's position, size, and orientation according to precise measurements, see Working with actors in Getting Started.


Tool Palette | Inspector Palette | Modifier Palette | Movie Window

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