Introducing Cavalry 1.4

Cavalry’s latest release introduces a raft of exciting new features.

Cavalry’s 1.4 release introduces a raft of new features including the Scheduling Group, Extrude, new Text features, 10 new Filters, Time Markers, the Timeline Counter, the Accumulator and many more updates and improvements. Here are some of the highlights but check out the full Release Notes to see all the updates.

Scheduling Group

A Scheduling Group provides a powerful way to group a collection of Layers and adjust their time offsets in a procedural way.

Using a Stagger Behaviour to offset each Layer in time.

In the example above a Stagger Behaviour is being used to offset each Layer. Adjusting the Stagger’s Maximum attribute sets the offset for the last Layer in the stack and spreads all the in-between Layers out accordingly. By swapping the Stagger for a Random, each Layer would be randomly offset in time instead. One of the benefits of using a Scheduling Group is that retrospectively reordering or adding/removing Layers is automatically handled.

Sequence

If you’ve ever been involved in any video editing work then you’ll be familiar with the concept of a ‘ripple edit’ tool — by moving the start/end point of a Layer, the rest of the timeline will move the same amount to compensate. Not only does the Scheduling Group’s Sequence feature introduce this concept to Cavalry but, like the above, reordering or adding/removing Layers is also respected. This is useful as an editing feature but can also be combined with the new Time Markers (see below) to create fully dynamic timelines, perfect for building automated templates.

The Sequence feature opens up ripple edit.

The Scheduling Group is a PRO feature.

Extrude

It’s now possible to create 2d extrusions for Shapes and give the appearance of depth.

Extrude is compatible with the native concepts in Cavalry so it’s possible to use Behaviours to vary things like Extrude Distance or Colour.

Extrude is a PRO feature.

Text

Text can be notoriously difficult to manage and gets even harder when trying to put together automated templates where the content can vary wildly — particularly when working in multiple languages.

A new Scale to Fit Text Box attribute on the Text Shape means that instead of breaking outside of your carefully considered design, text will be scaled down to fit the area defined by the size of the Text Box.

Another addition to the Text Shape is the ability to place Text along a Path. If you’ve used Cavalry before you’ll know that this is possible with the Pathfinder but that using that technique deforms the text. Instead, placing text along a path rotates each character along the path’s normals meaning each glyph retains its original shape.

Filters

Cavalry 1.4 adds 10 new Filters which can be used to stylise your creations.

Photos by Christine Kozak & Masahiro Miyagi on Unsplash

Photos by Klara Kulikova & Daniel Tran on Unsplash

• PRO Pixel Sorting Filter - Reorder a Layer's pixels by sorting them according to various attributes such as brightness.
• PRO Slit Scan Filter - Create an animated fly-through effect.
• PRO Scan Lines Filter - Mimic a CRT monitor.
• PRO Scrape Filter - Stretch pixels from a line to create a smeared effect.
• Edge Detection Filter — Convert the boundaries of colours within images to lines.
• Sharpen Filter — Increase the contrast between edge pixels, giving the appearance of greater sharpness.
• Vignette Filter — Simulate the light falloff characteristic when viewing images through certain types of lens.
• Posterize Filter — Create a low colour depth look by reducing the colour variation of Shapes to solid tones or colours.
• HSV Adjustment Filter — Adjust the Hue, Saturation and Value of a Shape.
• Inner Shadow Filter — Add an inner shadow to Shapes to simulate depth.

Time Markers

Time Markers are a useful feature that make it possible to bookmark key moments of an animation. They can be given labels and colours for quick visual reference. Right click in the Timeline to add a Time Marker or use the cmd/ctrl + 8 hotkey.

Time Markers in the Timeline.

But it doesn’t stop there. Time Markers can also be connected to keyframes and the start/end points of a Layer’s visibility clip. To do this, simply hover over a Time Marker and then pick up a connection from the connection anchor that appears above. Drop the connection on a keyframe or visibility clip end to connect it to the Marker.

Making a connection from a Time Marker

This means that key parts of animation can be organised and grouped together.

A Time Marker‘s position can also be set relative to the duration of the Composition so rather than placing Time Markers at exact frames, they can be positioned ‘half way along the Timeline’. This means that even if the duration of the Composition changes, the Time Marker will always stay half way along it.

Timeline Counter

Why stop there with Time Markers? The new Timeline Counter means they can also be used as a way to trigger animations. It works by passing a value of 1 each time the playhead moves past a Marker in the Timeline. In the example below we’ve used this value to drive a Blend Shape and an Animation Control to animate between the ‘simple smile’ and ‘heart eyes’ emojis. Now it’s as simple as moving a single Time Marker to retime the whole animation or simply add another one to repeat the animation again!

The animation is triggered every time the playhead passes a Time Marker.

The Timeline Counter is a PRO feature.

Accumulator

The Accumulator is a useful little utility that can be used to layout shapes relative to each other within a Duplicator. In the example below, the width of each rectangle is stored and then by adding each of them together, that accumulated value can be applied to set the correct position for each rectangle.

The Accumulator is a PRO feature.

Scripting

The JavaScript APIs were introduced in Cavalry 1.3 and have since had over 20 new calls added based on the feedback from the community. You can also now save encrypted scripts using the Save Encrypted... button in the JavaScript Editor. Use this technique to distribute closed source scripts. The JavaScript Editor has also been improved to auto-indent when creating newlines and to auto-complete brackets.

It’s been great to see scripts popping up on aescripts and from Matt White (aka Pepko) and helping customers build their own pipeline tools.

Not Forgetting

• New Layer tools meaning you can now interact with Gradients in the Viewport.
• A new Shortcut Manager.
• Time Remapping for Compositions.
• alt/option + click + drag to duplicate Shapes in the Viewport and Keyframes in the Time Editor.
• Snapping Keyframes, Visibility Clips and Time Markers in the Time Editor.
• The Image Smart Folder asset.
• …and much more.

Existing users can download the Cavalry 1.4 installers from their account. If you’re new to Cavalry then sign up here.

Cavalry is free forever to use or go Pro and unlock a world of creative possibilities. A Professional subscription to Cavalry is available from £16/month (paid annually) — sign up here.