EFFECTS AND TWEENS

An effect is a real-time change applied to a cue during playback. Most effects are tweenable — added from the Effect menu and animated over time with tween points: position, scale, opacity, color, crop, rotation, and more. A few are not tweenable — chroma key and key & fill — which you set once in the cue's properties. WATCHOUT provides more than 40 tween types, from simple fades to corner distortion and expression-driven automation.

Start Here

Understand how effects work before diving into specific effect types.

  • Understanding Effects - effect structure (type, keyframe points, interpolation curves, limits), how to add and edit effects, and the categories of supported tween types
  • Opacity and Fades - the most common effect: custom transparency animation plus the dedicated Fade-in, Fade-out, and Cross-fade convenience transitions

Transform Effects

Animate position, size, and rotation for motion graphics and spatial composition.

  • Position and Movement - animating cue placement on Stage for slide-ins, tracking moves, and camera-like pan effects
  • Scale and Size - X/Y scale effects with maintain-proportions control, pixel value display, and zoom effects
  • Rotation Effects - rotation across three axes: Z (2D spin), Y (horizontal 3D turn), X (vertical 3D tilt)

Visual Effects

Shape, color-correct, and soften your content.

  • Cropping - animating visible bounds (top, bottom, left, right) for reveals, wipes, safe-area adjustments, and dynamic framing
  • Color Adjustments - brightness, contrast, gamma, hue, saturation, invert, and per-channel gain/offset effects for mood transitions and color matching
  • Blur Effects - Gaussian blur for softening and defocus effects

Audio

  • Audio Volume - volume effects for music fades, lowering music under narration, and ambience balancing

Advanced Effects

Specialized tools for distortion, compositing, and data-driven animation.

  • Corners - per-cue perspective distortion via independent corner repositioning
  • Linear Wipe - directional reveal/hide transitions with angle, location, feather, and completion controls
  • Chroma Key - per-cue green/blue screen compositing with wide-gamut color matching
  • Key and Fill - layer-level compositing where one layer generates a transparency mask for another
  • Tween Expressions - driving any tween property with mathematical expressions for interactive, variable-driven, and externally controllable animations