Transform
The 3D gizmo — what it targets, the Move, Rotate and Scale modes, local versus global axes, and the movable anchor.
Reference
- Tool
- Transform
- Panel
- Tool Options
- Section
- Transform
The Transform tool moves, rotates and scales things in the scene with a 3D gizmo. What it acts on is chosen with the Transform what? picker: the drawing grid, the whole layer, a selection, a scene object, or the shot camera.
The panel is heavily conditional. The Gizmo picker is always first; everything below it depends on the active layer's kind and on the current target, and several controls appear only when there is something for them to act on.
Gizmo
Move drags along an axis, Rotate turns about one. Scale is offered only when the target is Object — for the other targets, scaling is done with the panel controls described below rather than with the gizmo.
The gizmo has four handles: three coloured axis handles — X in red, Y in green, Z in blue — and a centre handle that moves the target freely in the screen plane. The centre handle is available for Move only; it has no rotate or scale equivalent.
Transform what?
Repositions the drawing grid for new strokes. Existing artwork stays where it is.
Moves and rotates the whole layer. The layer's artwork travels with its grid.
Puts the gizmo on the current selection. Appears only when a selection exists.
Puts the gizmo on a selected scene object. Appears only when a scene object is selected.
Targets the shot camera. 3D shots only.
There is a sixth target that is not on the picker: tapping Adjust axis in Make 3D hands the gizmo the revolve axis — the line a single profile spins about. It moves only that line; the artwork is untouched, an orange overlay shows where the axis lies, and the panel carries Revolve and Cancel buttons to finish or back out.
In a 2D shot there is no grid and no shot camera, so Grid and Cam are not offered and the gizmo defaults to Layer.
This picker is shown only when the active layer is a plane layer. On a camera-space (2D) layer or a vector layer, the Grid, Layer and Selection targets are not offered; the panel instead shows the 2D layer's own transform controls, a Transform shot camera button that switches the target to the camera, and a note that a plane layer is required for grid, layer and selection transforms.
Global aligns the gizmo's axes to the world. Local aligns them to the target's own rotation, so dragging the X handle of a rotated layer moves it along the layer's width rather than along the world's X. Shown for plane layers, and hidden when the target is the camera.
Layer
Scales the layer's surface uniformly, reading out as a multiplier. The slider is continuous and the whole drag collapses into a single undo step.
Step the layer's content by a factor of 1.05 up or down per tap.
Translation and rotation for the Layer target are done with the gizmo handles; there are no numeric fields for them in this panel.
Selection
Selections scale non-uniformly from three button pairs rather than from a slider. Each tap applies a factor of 1.15 in the named direction; the minus button applies its reciprocal.
Scales the selection horizontally in its own plane.
Scales the selection vertically.
Scales both axes together.
While on, dragging moves the anchor point — the origin the gizmo rotates and scales about — instead of moving the selection. Turn it off to resume transforming.
Returns the anchor to its default position.
Move and rotate for the Selection target are gizmo drags, in 3D.
Object
Clears the object selection. A caption above it reports how many objects are selected.
Adds a per-object warp lattice, independent of the layer's own warp. Offered for vector objects only.
Appears only when two or more objects are selected. The menu offers Copy Location, Copy Rotation and Copy Scale; the first-selected object is driven by the second.
Object moves are keyframed
Move, Rotate and Scale on an Object target are recorded as keyframes on the timeline, so an object transform is animatable by construction. See Keyframes.
2D layer transform
On a camera-space layer, the panel carries that layer's own transform. Movement is a direct drag on the canvas; only scale and rotation are sliders, and both act about the frame centre.
Resizes the 2D layer about the frame centre, reading out as a multiplier.
Spins the 2D layer about the frame centre.
Returns the 2D layer's transform to its default.
Drawing follows the transform, so a 2D layer that has been moved and spun still takes strokes where they appear.
Camera
With the target set to Cam, the panel becomes the shot camera's controls.
The lens length. Low values are wide angle, high values are telephoto — the readout labels the current value wide below 600, tele above 1800, and normal between.
The camera's azimuth around the scene.
The camera's elevation.
The camera's distance from its target.
Four arrow buttons that nudge the camera left, right, up and down. These are deliberately a nudge; for precise placement, drag the 3D gizmo instead.
Returns the shot camera to its default position and lens.
Camera transforms do not affect 2D camera layers.
Numeric fields for the grid
The Grid transform section of the Scene panel is the numeric counterpart to the gizmo. It carries two rows of three fields each — Pos and Rot° — one per axis, with the same X-red, Y-green, Z-blue colouring the gizmo uses.
Gestures
Touches are tested in order: the anchor point first, within 34 points; then a motion-path keyframe; then a 2D layer's drag-anywhere; then the gizmo handles. A touch that hits none of these falls through to the camera gestures, so an empty-space drag orbits the viewport rather than moving anything.
QuickStrip and Sub Tool
The QuickStrip carries no sliders for Transform — only the colour well. Transform has no sub-tools.