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Animate a linear transformation

Apply a 2×2 or 3×3 matrix to a shape or a grid.

Visualize a linear map acting on a shape, vector, or grid.

2×2 (the default)

  1. Add a matrix animation event to an object.
  2. Edit the 2×2 grid: a, b, c, d (row-major — the matrix is applied to the object about the scene origin).
  3. Read the live determinant readout below the grid:
detMeaning
negativeflips orientation
≈ 0collapses to a line
otherwisearea × |det|
  1. Optionally start from a preset instead of hand-entering values.

3×3, for 3D scenes

Click the 3×3 toggle. This embeds your current 2×2 into the upper-left block of a full 3×3 ([[a, b, 0], [c, d, 0], [0, 0, 1]]) and expands the grid to all nine entries (m11m33). The determinant readout switches to the full 3×3 determinant.

The 3×3 matrix takes priority over the 2×2 in the render, and the render applies the true 3D ApplyMatrix. The 2D canvas preview can only show the upper-left 2×2 block of the map — it cannot approximate the full 3D result. This is a real limitation of the flat canvas preview, not a bug: render the video (or check Preview vs. render) to see the actual 3D transform.

Switching back to 2×2 discards the 3×3 grid — re-toggling to 3×3 re-embeds whatever the 2×2 currently holds, not what you had before.

Chain several matrix events on the same object, back to back on the timeline, to compose maps (shear, then rotate, then scale) as a sequence rather than one combined matrix.