Use gestures overview

The following illustration shows the basic gesture anatomy. The dot represents the start of the gesture, and the arrow represents the direction of your gesture. Draw the gesture on the tablet, with your pointer positioned over the Motion Canvas or Timeline.

Diagram showing basic gesture anatomy including start position, direction of movement, and end position icons

Modifier keys

Many gestures have additional functionality when used with a key on the keyboard. In the following tables, if a gesture has an entry in the Modifier keys column, it has additional functionality accessible via a keyboard shortcut. For example, if you have the Control key set as the gesture trigger, and you draw the play forward gesture, the project plays forward from the current time. If you press Control-Shift and draw the play forward gesture, the project plays from the start of the project.

Scale of gestures

There is no defined minimum or maximum scale for the gestural input. The tolerance is defined by the Inkwell technology. However, the size at which gestures are drawn may affect the result of the gesture. For example, when using the fit-to-fill zoom gesture and you draw a large circle, the zoom amount is small. If you draw a small circle, the zoom is large.