Canvas Pane

The Canvas pane of Motion Preferences contains settings to customize your Canvas view. Changes made in this pane take immediate effect in your current project. There are two categories: Alignment and Zones.

Alignment

These settings in the Canvas pane of Motion Preferences control the color and display of the optional grid, rulers, and guides that appear in the Canvas. Grids, guides, and rulers can be turned on and off in the View menu or in the View pop-up menu in the upper-right corner of the Canvas.

Grid Spacing: This slider sets the width for the grid in pixels.
Grid Color: This color well sets the color of the grid lines.
Guide Color: This color well sets the color of guides.
Dynamic Guide Color: This color well sets the color for dynamic guides.
Snap Objects At Their: The pop-up menu defines how objects are aligned with other objects when moved in the Canvas. There are three options:
- Center: Aligns objects at their centers.
- Edges: Aligns object at their edges.
- Center and Edges: Aligns objects at their centers and edges.
Ruler Location: This pop-up menu sets the position of the ruler in the Canvas. There are four options:
- Bottom Left
- Top Left
- Top Right
- Bottom Right

Zones

These settings in the Canvas pane of Motion Preferences control safe zone sizes and colors. Safe zones are special guides to help you avoid placing images in areas of the screen that might not appear correctly on consumer television sets. Images that appear outside the action-safe region might be cut off. The area outside the title-safe region might have distortions that make text hard to read.

Figure. Motion Preferences window showing Canvas Zone pane.

When producing output to be used for both television and film, it is helpful to see the area of the TV frame that will be cut off when the clip is converted to film. The film zone settings allow you to display a guide that identifies the aspect ratio of the film gauge you are working in.

The safe zone and film zone guides can be turned on and off in the View menu, or in the View pop-up menu in the upper-right corner of the Canvas.

Action Safe Region: A slider that sets the percentage of the Canvas where the action-safe guides appear. (Default is 90% of Canvas.)
Title Safe Region: A slider that sets the percentage of the Canvas where the title-safe guides appear. (Default is 80% of Canvas.)
Safe Zone Color: Sets the color of the safe zone guides.
Film Zone: This pop-up menu sets the guide size to match a standard aspect ratio. Entering a number into the value field to the right of the pop-up menu sets a custom aspect ratio. There are five menu choices:
- Academy Flat 1.85:1
- Anamorphic Scope 2.35:1
- High Definition 16:9
- Academy Standard 4:3
- Custom
Film Zone Color: Sets the color of the film zone guides.