Datasheet

18 chapter 1 ■ Setting Up a Composite
While the switches and menus will be described throughout the remaining chapters, a
few are worth noting here:
Magnification Ratio Popup menu zooms in or out of the view. To scroll left/right or up/
down in a viewer, LMB+drag with the Hand tool (to the right of the Selection tool).
Choose Grid And Guide Options menu allows you to apply Title/Action Safe, Grid,
and Ruler overlays to the view.
Tips & Tricks: Title/Action Safe and Overscan
The Title/Action Safe overlay is designed for SDTV. It offers a quick way to make sure critical text
and action doesn’t get too close to the edge of frame. Due to the design limitations of CRT-based
televisions, the frame edge is lost and is not seen by the viewer. This lost region is known as over-
scan. Although digital televisions offer greater control of the broadcast image display, overscan
remains a feature. For example, HD televisions generally show the viewer the central 1776
×1000
set of pixels out of a possible 1920
×1080 pixels. If a project is intended for motion picture film,
the Title/Action Safe overlay doesn’t apply. Nevertheless, due to projector apertures and masks,
a portion of the film frame is lost when shown in theaters. To compensate for this, some com-
positors import a custom field chart into the compositing program; a field chart indicates the
area of exposure and projection for a particular camera setup.
Toggle Mask And Shape Path Visibility, if toggled off, hides mask and shape paths.
Masks are discussed in Chapter 7, “Masking, Rotoscoping, and Motion Tracking.”
Take Snapshot, when clicked, captures the current view and stores it in a cache. You
can examine snapshots by clicking the Show Last Snapshot button. Snapshots are use-
ful when comparing different frames or the results of different effect settings.
Resolution/Down Sample Factor Popup menu reduces the resolution of the composi-
tion to speed up the viewer update. If this is set to Full, the composite is set to 100%
quality. If it’s set to Half, half the pixels are discarded and a pixilated view is thus
created.
Region Of Interest, if toggled on, allows you to LMB+drag interactively in the viewer
to isolate a small area. This improves the update speed of the viewer.
Toggle Transparency Grid, if toggled on, changes the empty black background of the
viewer to a white and gray checkerboard. This is useful for identifying subtle holes in
a layer.
Toggle Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction, if toggled on, stretches non-square pixels into
square pixels. For example, if a composition is set to DV resolution with a 0.9 PAR,
Toggle Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction stretches the view horizontally to create a 1.0
PAR. Note that the new PAR only exists in the viewer and does not affect the compos-
ite when it’s rendered through the Render Queue.
Fast Previews, if clicked, reveals a menu with the different display and graphics card
options available on your machine.
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