Scenes and nodes
A project holds one composition. The composition has a frame size, a frame rate, a duration, one camera and one root container. Everything visible is a node under that root.
There is no sequence and no second document. A Cask Flow project is one shot.
Five kinds of node
Section titled “Five kinds of node”| Kind | What it is |
|---|---|
container |
A box. Holds other nodes, and can carry a fill, a corner radius and a clip. |
text |
A line or a block of type. |
image |
An imported or generated bitmap. |
path |
A drawn shape or stroke. |
icon |
A glyph from the bundled catalogue. |
The pointer is not a sixth kind. It is a path node drawing the cursor glyph, so it moves, scales and keyframes like anything else.
The background is not a separate concept either. It is the root container’s own fill, or an image node sitting behind everything else.
Nodes carry properties
Section titled “Nodes carry properties”A node’s position, size, rotation, opacity, fill, text and the rest are properties on the node. The Inspector edits them one row at a time: Position as X and Y, then Size, Rotation, Opacity, and whatever else the kind supports.
Two properties are about time rather than appearance. In / out is the node’s visibility window in composition seconds. Outside that window the node is not drawn at all.
Nesting is the only grouping
Section titled “Nesting is the only grouping”A node belongs to exactly one parent. Move it in the layers pane to change that.
Resizing a group by hand scales everything inside it, base values and keyframe values alike, in the same undo entry as the resize. That is a convenience of the editing gesture, not a property of the model: a container’s numbers are its own box and nothing more.
Selecting through depth
Section titled “Selecting through depth”Clicking on the stage selects the node under the pointer at the level you are currently in, top-level nodes first. A second click on the node already selected steps into it, one level per click, so any depth is reachable with clicks alone.
Dragging a selected node moves it and never drills. Holding ⌘ while clicking picks the innermost node under the pointer outright. Clicking bare stage deselects and leaves the group. Esc steps out one level.
There is no double-click gesture. A double-click is two clicks, so it is two levels.
One clock
Section titled “One clock”Every time in the app and on the agent wire is seconds from the start of the composition: a keyframe, an in time, a camera move, a rendered frame. There is no clip-local time and no second clock to convert between.