User Guide

Chapter 7: Sprite Technology
To freeze a lens:
1. Select the lens object.
2. In the SpriteEffects palette, select the Frozen check box.
3. Deselect the Frozen check box to show the new viewpoint.
Sharing documents with SpriteEffects
Since SpriteEffects are “live” effects that can be edited and updated, there are a few issues to
consider if you plan to share documents that contain SpriteEffects.
Effects that are applied to an object need to be available to other Canvas users if they share the
document and need to edit the effects. If you use only built-in Canvas effects, this is not a problem. If
you use third-party plug-ins to apply effects, other users must have the same plug-ins installed.
Without the plug-ins, they cannot edit effects applied in a Canvas document (see "Using plug-in
filters with SpriteEffects" on page 651).
If you export a document using an image file format, the effects will be rendered into an image (as
described below), and the effects plug-ins will no longer be needed. Rendering is necessary because
other file formats do not support SpriteEffects on objects.
Printing effects
When you print from Canvas, preserving effects should not be a problem, as long as effects plug-ins
are available in Canvas when the document is printed. Whether you print directly to an output device
or to a PostScript file, Canvas renders effects before printing. This is true unless, in the Print dialog
box, you set Transparency Rendering to “Don’t Render Transparent Objects.” When this option is
selected, the only SpriteEffects that will be printed are lens objects that have no effects except
magnification and viewpoints.
Rendering effects
Preserve the appearance of effects by rendering objects before sharing a Canvas document.
Rendering converts SpriteEffects and objects into static images.
Effects and objects are not editable after conversion to images.
You can use one of several methods to render SpriteEffects:
Use the Camera tool to select an area of an illustration to render.
Select objects that have effects, including lenses, and choose Image | Area | Render.
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