Displaying Tile Pictures

It is possible to expand a tool's tile so that it displays an informative thumbnail image of either the tool's icon or the rendered tool's output. These small thumbnail images can be an enormous help in visualizing the operation of a flow.

Turning On The Tile Pictures

To turn on tile pictures for one or more tools, first select the tool(s) that are to have their tiles enabled. Right-click on one of the selected tools and choose Show>Show Tile Pictures from the menu.

Additionally, enable tile picture using one of the following four options.

Force Active Tile Pictures

This choice makes the active tool display a tile picture.

Force Source Tile Pictures

Display tile pictures for all source tools in the composition. For example , Loaders, Text, and BG tools will all show full tile pictures.

Force Mask Tile Pictures

This choice will cause all mask tools in the flow to show a tile picture.

Force All Tile Pictures

This option will cause all tools in the flow to show a tile picture.

Show Thumbnails

To switch between showing the thumbnail image rendered by the tool and the generic icon that represents the tool, use the Show Thumbnails option in the flow context menu.

Thumbnails That Do Not Display

A tool may not display its tile picture under certain circumstances, as described below. In these cases, the default icon for that tool is displayed instead of an image.

Concatenated Tools

Some transformation tools are able to concatenate their result, passing the actual processing downstream to another tool later in the flow. These tools do not actually process the image so they do not produce a thumbnail. Affected tools include transforms and merges.

Particle Tools

The only particle tool that generates an image is the pRender tool. All other particle tools display their default icon instead of an image.

3D Tools

The only 3D tool that generates an image is the Render 3D tool. All other particle tools display their default icon instead of an image.

Failed Tools

If a tool fails to process for some reason, it will not produce a thumbnail image. This usually happens when an upstream loader has no footage, is out of range or if the tool's valid region has been trimmed in the timeline.

Pass Through

Tools that have been set to Pass Through mode are effectively disabled and do not generate an image to display in the thumbnail view.