Compositor Controls

On the bottom of the window, there are many of the same transport buttons and controls that are available in the Program window. They work the same as in the Program window and also have tooltips that are visible when you mouse over each of the icons so their use is fairly obvious. However, of particular note is the button Click to play which is described in 2.4.1. Next is the Videoscope button which is used to enable the scopes window without having to apply the filter to the tracks/edits.

Next to all of these controls all the way to the right side, there is a zoom menu and a tally light. The zoom menu has a pulldown with different settings that you can choose from or you can just use the tumbler arrows to the right. Generally when just getting started, you will be using the default Auto option. The window size is not changed, but rather the size of the video itself. In addition there are many shortcuts for zooming that you will find in the Shortcuts chapter (15).

Using a RMB click in the compositor window brings up a menu with several options . One of these is Resize Window which allows for resizing the entire window instead of just the video and if you highlight that, you can choose from several variations for the window size. Other available options include self-explanatory ones of Fullscreen with "f" as a toggle to go to fullscreen and to revert to non-fullscreen and Zoom Auto. As you would expect, whenever the video is zoomed so that only part of the image is visible in the window, scrollbars are automatically added as needed on the bottom, the right hand side, or both. Other options include Reset camera and Reset projector which obviously are used to reset the camera and the projector (reference 2.2.5). And Camera/Projector keyframe will create a keyframe at that point on the timeline for X,Y, and Z without the requirement of being in Automatic Keyframe Mode. More information is described in the section Compositor Keyframes. The Hide controls/Show controls option is great for hiding the left hand toolbar and bottom set of controls for a cleaner look.

Next to the zoom tumbler arrows, is a tally light that will be filled in with some color (often red or blue) when a rendering operation is taking place . This is especially helpful when loading a very large video so you know when it is finished loading. You should pay attention to this tally light when performing a particularly time-consuming operation so that you do not keep executing more operations that just have to wait until completion of that CPU intensive operation. Also, you should look to see if the light is on before assuming that CINELERRA-GG is hung up.

When the window is unlocked, meaning that it is not in Protect video from changes mode on the toolbar, MMB clicking and dragging anywhere in the video pans the view. Panning can also be accomplished with the bottom and right hand side scroll bars when displayed.