5

Additional Lighting, Shadows, and Reflection Restrictions
The Lighting, Shadows, and Reflection parameter groups have several additional
restrictions. Use the following guidelines when working with lights and reflections:
• The Reflection parameter group is not available for 3D particle emitters or 3D
replicators.
• The Reflection parameter group is not available for normal text layers. However, the
Reflection parameters are available for flattened text, which is activated by the Flatten
checkbox in the Layout pane of the Text Inspector.
Additional Parameters in the Properties Inspector
Drop Shadow: Turns the drop shadow of a layer on and off. For more information about
working with drop shadows, see Drop Shadows.
Four Corner: Click the activation checkbox to turn distorting on and off. If a layer is
distorted and this checkbox is deselected, the layer resumes its original shape, although
the distorted coordinates are maintained. Reselecting the checkbox re-enables the distort
effect specified by the Four Corner coordinate parameters.
Value sliders modify the X and Y coordinates of the layer’s four corner points (Bottom
Left, Bottom Right, Top Right, and Top Left).
You can also control these parameters visually in the Canvas using the Distort tool. For
more information, see 2D Transform Tools.
Crop: Click the activation checkbox to turn cropping on and off. If a layer is cropped and
this checkbox is deselected, the layer resumes its original size, although the cropping
values are maintained. Reselecting the checkbox re-enables the cropping effect specified
by the crop parameters.
Adjust the four sliders to modify the crop parameters. Each slider defines the number of
pixels to be cropped from the layer’s four sides, relative to the outer edge of the bounding
box that surrounds it. These parameters are similar to the crop parameters in the Media
Inspector (available when you select a layer in the Media list). However, whereas cropping
a layer via the Media Inspector crops all instances of that layer in your project, cropping
a layer in the Properties Inspector crops only a single instance of the layer; duplicates of
the layer remain uncropped. For more information, see Media Inspector.
Timing: These parameters control all aspects of clip retiming. For more information, see
Retiming.
286 Chapter 7 Basic Compositing