en

Graph Editor

Graph Editor

The Graph Editor is where every curve of an effect is drawn: the graphs of the Emitter Guide (a size over life, a transparency over time, a position over emitter time…) and the Curves blocks of the Emitter Scheme — they are the same thing underneath.

It shows the graph you are working on right now. Open one with Edit Graph… (or Random From Graph…) on a graph value in the Emitter Guide, or by selecting a single Curves block in the Emitter Scheme.

The Graph Editor's buttons sit in the window's title bar, to the right of its tab, so the graph gets the whole window. Buttons that have nothing to work on are hidden: the loop buttons show up when a graph is open, the key types when keys are selected, the segment types when segments are selected. The ? button at the end lists the mouse and keyboard controls.

Reading a graph

The horizontal axis is the input of the graph, the vertical one its output. A Curves block can hold up to three graphs at once — X (R), Y (G) and Z (B) — listed in the top-right corner; click a name or a curve to work on that one, the others stay faded.

The name of the graph is written in the bottom-left corner, above the numbers: the name it has in the Emitter Guide (Size / Start, Transparency, a custom value's name) and what its horizontal axis is (Particle Life, Emitter Time, …), or the name of a Curves block added by hand.

The editor does not know what the input means. In the Emitter Guide it is whatever the value's X is: the particle's life from 0 to 1, seconds of particle, emitter or effect time, a custom value… Before the first key and after the last one, the graph keeps its end values (dashed lines), unless it is set to loop.

Editing

  • Add a key: double-click a curve, or Shift-click it (or beyond either end).
  • Move: drag keys; drag on empty space to select several at once.
  • Key and segment types: smooth, corner or broken keys; linear or bezier segments — from the title bar buttons, for the selected keys and segments. Drag the handles of a bezier segment to shape it.
  • Exact values: double-click a key to type its time and value.
  • Copy and paste keys between graphs with the usual shortcuts.
  • Loop the graph to the left or right with the title bar buttons.

Every finished change is one undo step.

Moving around

  • Pan: drag with the middle mouse button (two-finger scroll on a trackpad).
  • Zoom at the cursor: mouse wheel; Ctrl + wheel zooms the time axis only, Shift + wheel the value axis only (pinch on a trackpad).
  • Adjust view fits the graph you are editing.
  • Grid and Snap to grid with the title bar buttons.

Graph visualizers: seeing other graphs while you edit

Effects often time several properties to the same moments — a particle grows until 0.4 s, fades in by then, and changes its course at 1.3 s. Each of those is its own graph, and lining their keys up used to mean switching back and forth.

Pin a graph and it becomes a visualizer: a thin, faded, read-only outline of it is drawn in the Graph Editor whenever you edit any other graph of the effect — from any emitter that is turned on. The outlines live in the same coordinates as the graph you are editing, so a key can be put right on top of the moment another graph changes.

  • Pin a graph with the pin button (Show as visualizer) in the Graph Editor's title bar while you edit it, or with Show visualizer in a Curves block's properties. Graphs are not pinned by default.
  • Hover an outline to see its name next to the mouse: the graph's name, the emitter it belongs to when it is not the current one, and what its horizontal axis is (Particle Life, Emitter Time, …). The name only shows when nothing of the graph you are editing is under the mouse.
  • Click an outline to switch to editing that graph. If it belongs to another emitter, that emitter becomes the current one. The graph you left stays outlined if it is pinned. The view stays where it is, so the keys you were lining up do not jump; selecting a graph in the scheme or the Emitter Guide still opens it with its own view.
  • Show visualizers in the title bar hides or shows all outlines at once. It only affects the Graph Editor, for the current session. The arrow next to it lists every pinned graph of the effect, the one you are editing included, each with the color its outline is drawn in. Click a graph in the list to open it, the same as clicking its outline; the button at the end of a row unpins that graph. The list is available while the outlines are shown.
  • Colors. An outline takes the emitter's color label. Without one, it gets a color of its own from its place among the pinned graphs, which does not change when you open another graph.

Outlines are never edited by mistake: keys and curves of the graph you are editing always take the click first, and Adjust view ignores the outlines.

With no graph open

The Graph Editor stays open when you select something that is not a graph, or nothing at all. It then shows the pinned graphs alone, fitted into view, and always shows them — Show visualizers cannot hide them until a graph is open again, and then your own choice comes back. Adjust view fits all of them. Click one to start editing it.

The editor does not convert between axes. A graph over particle life (0..1) and a graph over emitter time (seconds) are drawn in the same coordinates as they are — check the axis named when you hover an outline before lining keys up.

Graph names

A graph made by the Emitter Guide is named after what it belongs to — Size / Start, Transparency, a custom value's name — and keeps that name up to date by itself; when several graphs would share a name, they are numbered (Position Change #1, #2). A Curves block added in the Emitter Scheme takes the name you give it in its properties. The name is also shown on the block in the scheme.