Notice how the entire red grid is changing.
I made a GIF that shows the Layer Transform tool in action (although I cheated a bit in making it–you can’t actually rotate and translate in a single mouse click.) The layer transform tool lets you translate, rotate, and scale however you’d like, but it affects the entire layer. This means you can do any offset, angle, or scale and all your shapes will look just fine. Because it transforms the entire grid, it doesn’t need to do any funny business to make the Hexels fit on the grid. This one differs from the others in that it actually modifies the underlying grid that the selected layer is drawn on. Layer Transform : The final transform method in Hexels is the Layer Transform tool. But it’s the only way you can rotate or scale a selected section of a layer. You would need to create multiple Key Cels and individually position each one.
#Hexels 2 free free#
Similar to the Click-and-Drag transform, Free Transform can’t be animated. It gets even more complex with rotation and scaling, but we handle most of that for you. As you can see, only a small portion of the possible positions can properly be re-mapped to the grid. When the original shape (overlaid in red) covers the dot, that Hexel is filled in with the corresponding color. These represent the center of each Hexel on the grid. In practice, the tool will snap to the grid pretty readily.
The Free Transform tool uses a “visual cast” to reinterpret transformed Hexel data onto the grid. Here’s a GIF showing how how visual cast works. Don’t worry though, as Hexels will snap to valid points if you’re close to them. It also means that your selection will get jumbled with transforms that don’t map fairly closely to the grid. This means that you may get a different number of Hexels than you started with. The visual cast reinterprets the selection by moving, rotating, and stretching it and then checking to see what shapes in the underlying grid now match up with the transformed image. The solution we can up with is what we call a “visual cast”. But in Hexels, we needed a way to preserve the shape and alignment of each Hexel, otherwise the image quickly turns to gibberish. (Unless you’re specifically making pixel art). This sort of thing is relatively easy in a pixel-based tool like Photoshop, because you generally don’t need to preserve the exact alignment of each pixel to keep the image looking nice. Clicking and dragging is a reliable way to move your Hexels, even if they sometimes look a little odd along the way.įree Transform : The Free Transform tool in Hexels was designed because a number of our users wanted a way to rotate and scale their selection. This transform type affects only the selected area of an individual Cel, so its effects can be used to make an animation Cel-by-Cel, but the transform itself is not animatable. Click-and-Drag movement will also respect a tiled (wrapped) layer, so moving a selection off one edge of the canvas will cause it to appear on the other side.
With this type of transform, you’ll always up with the same number of Hexels and outlines as you started with. The exact way each Hexel moves is determined by the shape mode you’re in, but we do our best to keep the shape together and move it in a way that makes sense given the user input. Or if you hold down ctrl/cmd, it just moves the selection outline and doesn’t modify what’s on the canvas. This tool simply takes each Hexel and moves it to a different spot on the grid. Make a selection with one of the selection tools, then mouse over the selection and click and drag it, or use the arrow keys to move your selection. Or as kids (and I, when trying to annoy my wife) call them, the deetz.Ĭlick-and-Drag: This one has been around since Hexels 1.0. Can do any translation, rotation, or scale, and can be animated. Layer Transform: Can only modify the entire layer because it moves the grid itself. Doesn’t animate, but can rotate or scale your selection to certain angles and sizes without messing up your shapes. If you’re just looking for the short summary, I’ll get to that first:Ĭlick-and-Drag Transform: Easy, operates on your selection, doesn’t animate, rotate, or scale.įree Transform: More difficult to use. My hope is that you’ll understand each tool better and have an idea of why it acts the way it does. In particular, I’ll be discussing when you should use which tool and how they work behind the scenes. For this post, I’ll be discussing the three different ways you can move your hexels around on the canvas.
#Hexels 2 free series#
Hello! This is my second in a series of Hexels mini-tutorials that look at some of the finer points of that strange-but-wonderful little art program.
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