Canvas Maps

Good to know: Canvas Maps is the name of the window where you create canvas mappings.

Creating and mapping to a canvas

You can create a canvas in Canvas Maps or Thumbnails windows.

To render to a Canvas, select the canvas in the Mapping dropdown.

Alternatively, just drag from the canvas onto the layer.

Canvas Maps window

To map an entire canvas onto a viewport object, just drag from the arrow onto the viewport object.

Mapping subareas

You can of course map just a subarea of a canvas. To create a subarea you can Shift+drag on a canvas.

Alternatively, you can just right click to bring up the menu where you select Create a subarea.

If you right click on an existing subarea, you'll bring up a menu where you can further edit the subarea.

To map a subarea, just drag from the arrow onto the destination viewport object.

Good to know: in relation to Canvas Maps, when we refer to a Mapping, we mean the connection between source (sub)area and the destination subareas.

Editing the mapping

If you right click on the destination subarea, you can further edit the mapping. Explore various options. One of the most powerful one is Create layout.

Mapping layout

If you click on Create layout, you'll create a node Layout dedicated just to this particular mapping.

In this layout, you have all the power of LightAct's Layout system at your disposal. By default there is just one Mesh Warp node there, but you can add any other nodes you might want.

A screenshot of a Mesh warp inside a Mapping layout with the effect shown in the Viewport object.