Cavalry
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    • Example Files
    • Key Concepts
      • Nodes
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  • User Interface
    • Menus
      • File menu
      • Edit menu
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      • Composition menu
      • Create menu
      • Animation menu
      • Shape menu
      • Tool menu
        • Select tool
        • Edit Shape tool
        • Pen tool
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        • Text tool
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        • Polygon tool
        • Star tool
        • Arc tool
        • Super Ellipse tool
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      • Window menu
        • Align Window
        • Animation Utilities
        • Assets Window
          • Google Sheets Asset
          • Image Sequences
          • Project Settings
        • Attribute Editor
          • Control Rows
            • Controls Rows - Types
            • Control Rows - Interaction
        • Color window
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        • Render Manager
          • Lottie Export
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        • Scene Window
          • Scene Tree
            • Composition Settings
          • Time Editor
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          • Keyframe Layers
        • Shelf
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        • Toolbar
        • Viewport
          • Rulers
      • Help menu
    • Widgets
      • Gradient
      • Graph Attribute
    • General
      • Aliasing
      • Blend Modes
      • Distribution Types
        • Array Distribution
        • Circle Distribution
        • Fibonacci Distribution
        • Grid Distribution
        • Linear Distribution
        • Mask Distribution
        • Math Distribution
        • Path Distribution
        • Point Distribution
        • Random Distribution
        • Rose Distribution
        • Shape Edges Distribution
        • Shape Points Distribution
        • Shuffle Distribution
        • Sub-Mesh Distribution
        • Voxelize Distribution
      • Color Management
      • Motion Blur
      • Vector artwork support
  • Nodes
    • Shapes
      • Common Attributes (Shapes)
      • Background Shape
      • Basic Line
        • Bézier
        • Line
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      • Basic Shape
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        • Cogwheel
        • Ellipse
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        • Super Ellipse
      • Cel Animation Shape
      • Composition
      • Connect Shape
      • Convex Hull
      • Custom Shape
      • Duplicator
      • Editable Shape
      • Footage Shape
      • Group
      • Image to Shapes
      • Layout Shape
        • Grid Layout
        • Horizontal Layout
        • Vertical Layout
      • Outline
      • Points to Curve
      • Quad Tree Shape
      • Rectangle Pattern
      • SVG
      • Spacer
      • Sub-Mesh Bounding Box
      • Text Shape
      • Trails
    • Behaviours
      • Common Attributes (Behaviours)
      • 3D Matrix
      • Add Divisions
      • Align
      • Alpha Material Override
      • Apply Distribution
      • Apply Layout
      • Behaviour Mixer
      • Bevel
      • Blend Shape
      • Blend Sub-Mesh Positions
      • Boolean
      • Clean Up
      • Color Blend
      • Color Material Override
      • Curve to Lines
      • Distance
      • Fill Rule
      • Flare
      • Flatten Shape Layers
      • Frame
      • Get Vector
      • HSV Material Overide
      • Is Within
      • Look At
      • Manipulator
      • Material Sampler
      • Modulate
      • Morph
      • Noise
      • Number Range
      • Number Range to Color
      • Oscillator
      • Path Offset
      • Pathfinder
      • Pinch
      • Position Blend
      • Push Along Vector
      • Random
      • Resample Path
      • Round
      • Rubber Hose Limb
      • Simple Value Solver
      • Simple Value2 Solver
      • Skew
      • Sound
      • Split Path
      • Spring
      • Squetch
      • Stagger
      • Sub-Mesh
      • Subdivide
      • Swap Color Override
      • Value
      • Value 2
      • Value Blend
      • Value2 Blend
      • Visibility Sequence
      • Voxelize
    • Utilities
      • Animation Control
      • Apply Font Size
      • Array Manipulator
      • Asset Array
      • Bounding Box
      • Bounding Box Constraint
      • Color Array
      • Color Info
      • Composition Constraint
      • Component Constraint
      • Context Index
      • Falloff
      • Get Name
      • HSV Color
      • If Else
      • Index to Color
      • JS Math
      • Length Context
      • Local Time
      • Math
      • Math2
      • Math 3
      • Measure
      • Mesh Array
      • Null
      • Path Length
      • Regex
      • Rig Control
      • Sequence
      • Shader Array
      • Spreadsheet
      • Spreadsheet Lookup
      • String
      • String Array
      • String Generator
        • Formatted String Generator
        • Hash Generator
        • Hexadecimal Generator
        • Random Date Generator
        • Random Number Generator
        • Timecode Generator
        • Value Generator
      • String Length
      • String Manipulator
        • Change String Case Manipulator
        • Join String Manipulator
        • Replace String Manipulator
        • Regex String Manipulator
        • Resize String Manipulator
        • Shuffle String Manipulator
        • Sub-String Manipulator
        • Transition String Maniplulator
      • Transform Constraint
      • Typeface
      • Typeface Array
      • Value Array
      • Value 2 Array
      • Value 2 Array
      • Velocity Context
      • Velocity Magnitude Context
    • Effects
      • Blur
      • Color Shader
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      • Fill
      • Gradient Shader
      • Image Shader
      • Invert
      • Levels
      • Linear Wipe
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      • Radial Wipe
      • SkSL Shader
      • Shape to Shader
      • Tri Tone
      • Venetian Blinds
  • Tips
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  • Applications
    • Cavalry Player
    • Cavalry CLI
  • Technical Information
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    • Mathematical Expressions
    • Release Notes
      • 1.1.1 Release Notes
      • 1.1 Release Notes
      • 1.0.3 Release Notes
      • 1.0.2 Release Notes
      • 1.0.1 Release Notes
    • User Preferences
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On this page
  • Intro
  • Anatomy of the Scene Tree
  • Showing and hiding Elements and Groups
  • Locking and unlocking objects in the composition
  • Controlling the visibility of Element hierarchies
  • Showing and hiding animation channels
  • Setting the label colour of Elements in the composition
  • Naming Elements
  • Creating and editing hierarchies
  • Changing composition settings
  • Searching the Scene Tree
  • Grouping Elements
  • Selecting Elements in the Scene Tree
  • Searching
  • UI

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  1. User Interface
  2. Menus
  3. Window menu
  4. Scene Window

Scene Tree

Intro

The Scene Tree consists of a dual hierarchy of Parent/Child Elements and animation channels. Either or both can be disabled to reduce the complexity of the Scene Tree view. From the Scene Tree you can parent Elements underneath one another, you can control their visibility or quickly see what animated channels the Element has, you can also make connections to/from this window as well as use the powerful organisational, search and selection features to help you work rapidly in your Composition.

Anatomy of the Scene Tree

Showing and hiding Elements and Groups

Located on the left hand side of the Scene Window there are three switches. The middle switch has an eye icon, this is the visibility switch. Clicking this toggles the visibility of the Element. If a parent Element is hidden this fact is passed on to its child items.

  • Making a Behaviour invisible will turn it off (it will no longer calculate).

  • Invisible shapes are not rendered, but they are still calculated as their shape may be needed elsewhere (such as in a Duplicator or Outline shape).

Locking and unlocking objects in the composition

The left hand button is the lock icon. Clicking this will disable all the interactive aspects of the row such as the visibility switch and renaming, but it will leave the hierarchy button and the Connection Anchor available to interaction.

Controlling the visibility of Element hierarchies

For Elements with children an arrow disclosure icon will appear to the left of the Element's icon. You can use this to toggle whether you see the heirarchy of objects or not. This is useful for simplifying your Scene Tree display. Note that hiding the hierarchy doesn't hide the objects, it's purely an organisational tool.

Showing and hiding animation channels

Animated Elements show a small dot to the right of the Hierarchy switch. Clicking this dot will hide all the channels for this object. It's useful for when you need to concentrate on organisation and scene hierarchy.

A quick way to show and hide the heirarchies of several Elements at once, is to first select them, then use the shortcut Command/Ctrl + Shift + H to toggle the Show Hierarchy state.

Setting the label colour of Elements in the composition

The coloured square to the left of the Element name is the label colour menu, clicking it will open a list of predefined colours which you can use to help categorise and identify everything in your Scene Window.

Element colours are inherited by the Time Editor and Graph Editor, so colours work consistently across the application.

Naming Elements

To rename an Element in Cavalry simply select the row in the Scene Window and hit the return key on your keyboard, this will make the name editable. Once done, either press return again or click out of the box to commit the name change. Pressing escape will stop the editing process without committing the new name.

Creating and editing hierarchies

A hierarchy is a collection of related Elements arranged in a tree. Parent Elements show their children underneath them with their names and icons slightly offset to the right. Children can contain grandchildren, and so on.

Using hierarchies you can create complex animation with relative ease as each child inherits the transformations of its parent.

To parent one Element under another, you click and drag on the one you want to be the child, and then release the mouse when it's over the new parent; a box should appear around the Element you're dropping on, this indicates what's about to happen.

To unparent an Element, drag it out of it's parent hierarchy into a blank space in the Scene Tree, or between two Elements at the top level, and release the mouse.

Changing composition settings

Searching the Scene Tree

There is a search bar at the top of the Scene Window above the main hierarchy of Elements. To search simply click in this box and start typing. Elements will then be filtered by name.

You can also populate the search by dragging an Element into the search field.

Grouping Elements

To group an Element of group of Elements you can simply select the ones you're interested in and then press Command/Ctrl-G. The Elements will then be parented under a new Group.

Selecting Elements in the Scene Tree

Elements can be selected by clicking anywhere on their row. Command/Ctrl clicking a different row will add or remove from an existing selection. Holding shift when selecting a second Element will select everything between the two in the Scene Tree.

  • Double clicking on an Element will load its UI into the Attribute Editor

  • Holding Alt while double clicking will clear the Attribute Editor before adding the new UI.

Searching

Use the search bar at the top of the Scene Tree to filter Elements. This is useful when you want to distill what's shown down to only the part of your animation you're working on.

UI

Animation Layer Filter - filter the Scene Tree to only show selected layers and their animated attributes. The following hotkeys can be used:

Hotkey

Result

u

Any selected layers are filtered and, if any animated attributes are hidden, they are revealed. If there is no selection the entire scene is filtered.

alt + u

Any selected layers are filtered including any children with any animated attributes and, if any animated attributes are hidden, they are revealed.

shift + alt + u

Any selected layers are filtered including any children and, if any animated attributes are hidden, they are revealed.

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Last updated 4 years ago

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Click on the Composition Settings button in the Scene Tree header to open the Composition Settings window. See - .

Tags - open/close the drawer.

Composition Settings
Tags