Create a Zone
To create zones, you simply draw them over the screen background in the Sceen Designer window. This window opens whenever you select a screen in the tree. It displays the screen background, as well as the zone placement.
You may also use this method to create a new zone in an existing screen. You must first make room on the screen for the new zone.* You can either completely remove an existing zone, or you can resize existing zones to make room for the new one.
* This is not required for Audience.playback.tv or Audience.playback.sign systems that have 'overlapping zones' enabled.
To create a zone:
1.Click on the screen in the tree. The screen background and zones (if any) are displayed in the right pane.
2.Right-click on the screen background and enable/disable 'Allow Overlap' according to the following:
- Audience.playback.tv or Audience.playback.sign system: enable to use zone layering.
- For all other systems, disable Allow Overlap.
3.Point your cursor to where you want to begin drawing a zone, and then right click and select Add. The cursor changes to crosshairs. If there is already a zone in that location, see "Place a New Zone Where There are Already Existing Zones" below.
4.Place the cursor where you want to start creating a zone, and while holding down the left mouse button, drag it to create a rectangle until it is the size you want. Then release the mouse button.
5.In the Add Zone dialog box, give the zone a name. Recommended naming procedure: ScreennameZonename (for example, TorontoVideo, NationalCrawl, CasinoAds).
6.Still in the Add Zone dialog box, ensure that the zone sizes are all even numbers (2, 4, 6, etc.). Zones should always have even numbered pixels.
Also note that when creating a full size zone (one that takes up the entire screen), you must make the zone 2 pixels smaller than the entire screen, on the x and the y axis. If the zone takes up the entire screen, Audience will think it is a screen background, and the zone may not function properly. For example, if your zone numbers are as follows: Left: 0, Bottom: 0, Width: 720 and Height: 485, you must change Left and Bottom to be 2 rather than 0, and you should change the Height from 485 to 484 so that it is an even number.
7.Optional: give the zone a user-friendly title, which can appear in the tree, and in Audience.web. See Zone Titles
8.Click "Locked" to lock the zone size. This step is required.
9.Repeat steps 3 to 8 until all your zones are created. Or if your system uses is for Audience.playback.tv or Audience.playback.sign, and Allow Overlap is enabled, you can duplicate a zone to create a new zone with the exact same dimensions and placement (for use as a background motion zone, or a mask zone, etc).
See Resize and Move Zones if you need to make changes to a zone's size or placement.
Place a New Zone Where There are Already Existing Zones
If there are existing zones where you want to place the new zone, and
- you have an Audience.playback.tv or Audience.playback.sign system set to allow overlap, you can hide any of the zones from displaying temporarily, to facilitate zone creation. Go to View > Zone Layers and uncheck the zones you want to hide from view.
- you have an Audience.web system, unlock the zone (right-click and uncheck Lock) and then make room on the screen for the new zone. You must either
- Resize or move the zone (see Resize and Move Zones); or
- Remove the zone (see Remove a Zone).
TV Safe Area
You may notice a box with dashed lines over the screen image. This box indicates the "TV safe" area of the display. If you are designing your show for on-air broadcast, keep your zones within those lines or items may appear 'off the screen' when displaying on a TV monitor.
Lock the Zone
When you are satisfied with your zones, "lock" each zone. Left click on the zone then right click on it's picture in the right frame and select Lock. Repeat for each zone. A padlock icon appears on the zone and in the tree. This prevents accidentally moving or resizing.
Zone Background
The section of the screen background "under" each zone will be automatically "cut out" and converted into a zone background, to be used when creating templates and pages in that zone. The name of the “cut out” graphic is the same as the zone. It is saved in c:\digimation\elements\backgrounds. Most of the Quick Templates use this zone cutout as their default background.