Contour Editor Tool Properties

The Contour Editor lets you reshape vector shapes, brush strokes and lines in your drawings.

Artwork in Storyboard Pro is made of vector shapes. Vector shapes are defined by points, the lines joining the points together (contours) and the curve vectors, represented by Bezier handles, which make the curve of said lines.

The Contour Editor tool allows you to select a contour or point, and change the position of points, add and remove points from the shape, rotate, lengthen and shorten curve handles to influence the curve of contours between those points, or drag contours between points to change their curve directly.

  1. In the Tools toolbar, select the Contour Editor tool.

    2. The tool's properties are displayed in the Tool Properties view.

NOTE For tasks related to this tool, see About the Contour Editor Tool.

Tool Modes

Icon Property Description
Selection Mode

Allows you to choose the method to visually select multiple elements:

  • Lasso: Allows you to select multiple elements by drawing an irregular closed shape around them with your mouse.
  • Marquee: Allows you to select multiple elements by drawing a rectangle around them. This is faster, as you only need to drag your mouse from one corner of the rectangle to its opposite corner, but it may not be as precise as you want.
TIP You can press and hold the Alt key to temporarily use the other selection mode.
Snapping

Allows you to enable or disable snapping for this tool and all other animation and drawing tools that support snapping, as well as to select which types of snapping are enabled.

If you double-click or long-click on this button, it will open a pop-up menu in which you can toggle different snapping modes. You can also click on this button to toggle it off, which will disable all snapping modes, and click on it again and toggle it on to re-enable the snapping modes which were previously enabled.

This tool supports the following snapping modes:

  • Snap to Contour: When enabled, moving the control point in a contour near another contour will snap that control point against that contour. This will lock the point and the contour together, and moving the control point will deform the contour.

    This option can be especially useful if you need to makes the edges of two shapes snap together, like so:

    You can also use this option to make a control point snap against another control point, allowing you to join lines together.

    NOTE When a control point is snapped against a contour or another control point in your drawing, the Contour Editor will manipulate them together. However, even if you make a point in one drawing stroke snap against another drawing stroke, they will remain separate drawing strokes unless they are flattened together, and you will still be able to manipulate them individually with the Select tool.

  • Snap to Alignment Guides: While moving the selection or one of its control points, it will snap against nearby alignment guides—see About Alignment Guides.

  • Snap and Align: Snaps the selected anchor point to any existing line while displaying temporary rulers as a guide that you can also snap your anchor point to.

  • Snap to Grid: While moving the selection, the mouse cursor will snap against the intersecting points of the grid.

    TIP To display the grid, select View > Grid > Show Grid from the top menu or press Ctrl + G.
Tip Style

If you select and remove part of a pencil line, this option allows you to choose which kind of line tip the removed segment should leave behind:

  • Tip Style: Round: Leaves rounded tips at the extremities of the deleted line segment.

  • Tip Style: Flat: Leaves flat tips at the extremities of the deleted line segment.

Operations

Icon Property Description
Smooth Selection

The Smooth operation lets you smooth out selected drawing strokes and remove extra points.