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Controllers

OVERVIEW

Controllers manage your animation origin point and allow you to parent multiple layers for them all to share the same transformation axis

Introduction

Controllers can modify the position, scale, and rotation of other layers. When you link a controller to a layer, all transforms that happen on the controller are passed to the linked layer. This is useful for animating layers from a point other than the center of the layer or transforming multiple layers. Other software can refer to these layers as "Null Layers" or "Null Objects".

[Insert video of Controllers from Parenting video: https://youtu.be/Okz0jINqteU?t=164]

Adding a controller

Add a controller to your project by clicking the icon in the Toolbar. The red icons that appear when you click the tool bar are invisible layers that do not render in your exports and they can be used in a variety of ways.

Linking controllers to other layers

Controllers are only useful when you link them to other layers and manipulate those layers with the controller. To link layers to a controller, do the following:

  1. Create a controller by clicking the controller button on the Toolbar
  2. Create or select layers in your timeline that you’d like to link to the controller
  3. On the Layer List, drag the layer linking dot of the layer(s) to the Controller

Now your layers are linked to the controller! Any transform (position, rotation, scale, skew) that you make on the controller will be applied to all the linked layers.

Using controllers to de-center transformation origin points

In Fable, all transformations (scale, rotation, position) are calculated from the center of a layer. If you’d like to transform your object from a point other than the center, you can use a controller to define the point you’d like to originate your transformations from.

Origin point animation

To achieve an effect similar to the above, make sure to position your controller at the point you’d like your transformations to be calculated from BEFORE linking layers to the controller.

In other animation tools, adjusting a layer's transformation origin is often referred to as moving the "anchor point" of the layer. We observed that a majority of people work with their anchor points at the center of their layers. Therefore, instead of bloating every single layer with offset origin controls, we have designed controllers to be an optional feature that you only need to add for layers you need to adjust the transformation origin point.