User Manual

The Active Node
When you select a single node using any of the methods described above, the selected node
is known as the active node, and is highlighted orange to indicate that its parameters are
currently editable in the Inspector (if the Inspector is open). This also indicates that node will be
targeted for specific operations (such as inserting new nodes).
While multiple nodes can be selected, only one node will be the active node. To indicate the
difference, the active node remains highlighted with orange, while all other selected nodes are
highlighted with white. Unselected nodes have simple black outlines.
The active node is highlighted orange, while other selected nodes are highlighted white.
To set the active node when there are multiple selected nodes:
 Option-click one of the selected nodes in the Node Editor to make that
one the active node.
 Open the Inspector (if necessary), and click a node’s header bar to make it
the active node.
Deselecting Nodes
Deselecting nodes, when necessary, works pretty much as you would expect.
Methods of deselecting nodes:
 Click once in the background of the Node Editor to deselect all nodes.
 Press Command-Shift-A to deselect all nodes.
 Command-click to deselect multiple nodes one at a time.
 Command-drag a bounding box to deselect a group of selected nodes at one time.
Loading Nodes into Viewers
Once you’ve started building a composition, the next thing you need to learn is how to view
specific nodes that you want to work on. This is important because the combination of which
node is being viewed and which node is currently selected (these aren’t always the same node)
often determines which onscreen controls are available and how they appear.
In the following example, you’re set up to rotoscope an image using a Polygon node that’s
attached to the garbage mask input of a MatteControl node which is inserting the mask as an
alpha channel.
Chapter – 56 Working in the Node Editor 1076