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Creating a Nested Artboard

To add a new Nested Artboard, use the Nested Artboard tool you can find in the Artboards menu or the shortcut N. Once the tool is activated, click anywhere on the desired artboard.

You’ll notice at first that your Nested Artboard appears as a group. You’ll need to assign an artboard to it using the inspector before it will appear.

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Configuring a Nested Artboard

Once you’ve added a Nested Artboard, there are a number of ways to playback various animations and State Machines.

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State Machines

After assigning an artboard to a Nested Artboard, you’ll notice that the default state machine for that artboard is displayed in the Inspector.

If you’ve exposed any Inputs, you can access them using the options menu (when an animation is selected) or in the Inputs Panel (when a state machine is selected).

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Adding an Animation

You can playback any animation associated with a Nested Artboard. You’ll need to add the desired animation to the Nested Artboard using the plus button in the Inspector.

These animations can be used by themselves, mixed with its state machine, or other animations.

Note that before adding the animation, you must select whether the animation is a Simple or Remap animation. We’ll discuss the differences below.

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Simple

Simple animations are an easy way to enable an animation playback on a Nested Artboard.

A Simple animation lets you key when an animation begins playing on a timeline. You also have the option to change the animation’s playback speed.

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Remap

Remap animations allow you to key time values of an animation on the timeline. This lets you stretch, shrink, or even play an animation in reverse.

Note that the time value is in percent, with 0% representing the start of the timeline and 100% representing the end.

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Mix Value

As you add additional animations to a nested artboard, animations begin to mix together. This mixing is important, especially when multiple animations share keyed properties. Without adjusting this value, your nested artboard may not playback your animations in the way you want.

By default, any animation added to a nested artboard starts with a mix value of 100%. You can adjust this value in design mode or in a specific animation by setting keys. Note that an animation that has a non-zero mix value will always be mixing with other animations, regardless if it has a play key set or not.

To ensure the correct animation is playing, ensure that you key the mix value for the desired animation to 100%, and all other animations have a mix of 0%.

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Nested Artboard Modes

Nested Artboards can be set to use one of 3 modes which will behave differently based on their contents and the context in which they are used. The Leaf and Layout modes are typically used when the parent artboard needs to layout its contents responsively.

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Node

This is the default mode and is used in non-responsive scenarios. Its contents will always appear scaled (via the Scale property).

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Leaf

Leaf mode will result in the Nested Artboard always being positioned and resized relative to its containing Layout or Artboard. This can be useful if the Nested Artboard contains elements that need to resize to its container, but don’t contain Layouts themselves.

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Leaf Fit

The Fit type determines how the Nested Artboard Leaf will scale within it’s allotted area.

  • Fill (Default): Content will fill the available view. If the aspect ratios differ, then the Rive content will be stretched.
  • Contain: Content will be contained within the view, preserving the aspect ratio. If the ratios differ, then a portion of the view will be unused.
  • Cover: Rive will cover the view, preserving the aspect ratio. If the content has a different ratio to the view, then the content will be clipped.
  • Fit Width: Content will fill to the width of the view. This may result in clipping or unfilled view space.
  • Fit Height: Content will fill to the height of the view. This may result in clipping or unfilled view space.
  • None: Content will render to the original size of its artboard, which may result in clipping or unfilled view space.
  • Scale Down: Content is scaled down to the size of the view, preserving the aspect ratio. This is equivalent to Contain when the content is larger than the canvas. If the canvas is larger, then ScaleDown will not scale up.

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Leaf Alignment

The Alignment type determines how the contents are aligned within the allotted area. Alignment is set in a 3x3 grid fashion: Center (Default), Bottom Left, Bottom Center, Bottom Right, Left Center, Right Center, Top Left, Top Center, Top Right.

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Leaf Alignment Position X/Y

Leaf Alignment Position is a numerical representation of Alignment and can be used in cases where the 9 Alignment options are not desirable. Values can be represented in the following ways: X = -1 (Left), 0 (Center), 1 (Right) and Y = -1 (Top), 0 (Center), 1 (Bottom). Non-integer values can also be used in order to align in various ways, for example, X = 0.5 will position the content half way between Center and Right.

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Layout

Layout mode is used when your Nested Artboard contains Layouts that need to remain responsive as the size of its parent changes. This is the only mode where Nested Artboard contents are not scaled, rather the artboard size changes in order to reflow the Nested Artboard’s contents.

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Layout Scale Type

  • Fixed - A fixed width or height for the layout. The defined value can be either a point or percentage value. Use the unit toggle within the fields to toggle between value types.
  • Hug - The width and/or height of the layout shrinks to fit its children. This is useful if your Nested Artboard contains Text or other objects that need to determine the Nested Artboard’s size.
  • Fill - The width and/or height of the layout expands to fill the available space within the parent layout or artboard.

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Layout Size

When set to Fixed, the width and height of the Nested Artboard can be set to either Pixel or Percent values. This is different than the Scale property which changes the Nested Artboard’s scale. Typically Scale should not be used when Layout mode is selected.

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Exposing Inputs and Events

If you intend to use a Nested Artboard as a component, you should expose inputs that the main artboard can see. This allows you to control Nested Artboards with Other Nested Artboards using a main State Machine.

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How to Expose an Input

Exposing an Input allows the parent artboard to access and manipulate it. To do this, select the desired input, then check the expose to main artboard option in the inspector.

After creating a nested artboard, you’ll see any exposed inputs in the Inspector via the options panel and in the Inputs panel.

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Using Input on a Parent Artboard

Exposed inputs can be found in the Inputs panel or in the inspector. You can use them through listeners, an event, or by keying them on a timeline.

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Via a Listener

When you create a listener, you’ll find all exposed Inputs as a set input property of a Listener. This option lets you, for example, change the boolean input of multiple artboards simultaneously.

Using Events

Additionally, we can use listeners to listen for Events firing in our Nested Artboards and change inputs based on those.

To see an Event associated with an artboard, you’ll need to set the Artboard as a target of the listener. The Event will now be listed as a listener action.

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Keying on the State Machine

You can key exposed inputs on the parent artboard via the options panel in the inspector.

This is a handy trick when you, for example, want to set the text value of a nested artboard.