Draw and shapes

Strokes land on the exact frame you are viewing. Each one is fixed the moment you lift the pen, so your marks never change after the fact.

What can you draw with in FrameSketch?

The toolbar groups Select, Draw, Shapes, Annotate, Review, and View. Draw with the brush, point at things with the laser, remove with an eraser, and add rectangles, ellipses, and straight lines. Everything lands on the exact frame you are viewing.

Select (V)

Pick, move, and delete shapes and notes. Click a shape or note to select it, then drag it or press Delete. Shift+click adds to the selection (or removes from it). Strokes stay put once drawn, so they are not selectable.

Brush (B)

One brush tool with four ready-made presets: Fine Pencil, Inking Pen, Ball Pen, and Calligraphy Marker. Each preset has its own color, size, and pressure response, and keeps the color you give it. The brush panel, which opens when the tool is active, holds the presets and every setting.

Laser

A review pointer, not an annotation. Draw a glowing line to point at something on the footage; it fades back along its own path and is never saved.

Eraser (E)

Removes strokes, shapes, and notes as you drag over them.

Rectangle (R)

Drag to draw a rectangle. The quick bar shows Stroke and Fill controls: switch the fill off for an outline-only shape, or leave it on to fill with the fill color. Hold Shift for a perfect square, Ctrl to draw from the center, or both.

Ellipse (O)

Drag to draw a circle or oval, outline or filled. A fill toggle in the quick bar switches between the two. Hold Shift for a perfect circle, Ctrl to draw from the center, or both.

Line (L)

Drag from start to end to draw a straight line. Hold Shift to snap it horizontal or vertical, or Ctrl to snap it to 15° increments.

Copy, paste, and duplicate

Selected shapes and notes can be copied, cut, pasted, and duplicated from the Edit menu or with the usual shortcuts: Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+D (⌘ on macOS). Each action counts as one undo step.

Copy and cut. Copy puts the selection on the clipboard and leaves it in place. Cut does the same and removes it from the frame.
Paste. The copied elements land on the current frame, offset a little from the original so they never cover it. They stay selected, so you can drag them into place. Each further paste adds more offset, which keeps repeated pastes from piling onto each other.
Duplicate. Makes an in-place copy with the same offset and leaves the clipboard alone. Handy for elements you repeat, like a mouth shape used on several frames.
Across scenes. The clipboard survives scene switches. Copy something in one scene, open another, and paste it there.
Locked layers. Paste skips locked layers. Unlock the layer or switch to another one, then paste again.

Shape and line modifiers

Modifier keys change what a drag draws. They are read live, so you can press or release them while already dragging. On macOS, use ⌘ instead of Ctrl.

Shift + Drag (rectangle or ellipse). A perfect square or circle, sized to the dominant axis.
Ctrl + Drag (rectangle or ellipse). The shape is drawn from the center: the press point stays in the middle.
Ctrl + Shift + Drag (rectangle or ellipse). A perfect square or circle drawn from the center.
Shift + Drag (line). A perfectly horizontal or vertical line, whichever the drag is closer to.
Ctrl + Drag (line). A line snapped to 15° increments (0°, 15°, 30°, and so on) with its length preserved.
Ctrl + Shift + Drag (line). The 15° snap, which already includes the horizontal and vertical angles.

Tool settings

The quick bar shows the settings for the active tool. Pick a tool, then adjust these before you draw:

Stroke color. The color of the current tool, picked in the quick bar.
Size. Stroke width. The brush also responds to pen pressure.
Opacity. How transparent the stroke is. Handy for light pass marks over footage.
Fill toggle and color. Shape tools toggle between an outline and a filled rectangle or ellipse. The stroke and fill switches cannot both be off. Lines never take a fill. With the select tool, a shape already on the canvas restyles the same way.

Pressure sensitivity

With a pressure-sensitive pen, the brush varies its width with how hard you press. Shapes do not.

Drawing on other frames

Each stroke belongs to the frame you were on when you drew it. Step to the next frame with the arrow keys, turn on onion skin to see where you are going, and keep drawing.