DIY Tagtool

A Tagtool is usually operated by two people – an artist (using the actual Tagtool) and an animator (using a gamepad to move the drawings around).

Artist Controls (on the Tagtool)

Apart from the pen, the artist controls consist of 6 faders and a pushbutton. The pushbutton releases a drawing so the animator can move them. The faders control the following parameters:

1- Hue
Controls the hue of the color you’re drawing with. Starts with red at the bottom, moves through orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and back to red.

2 – Saturation
Controls the saturation, or “whiteness”. At the bottom setting, there is no color (so you get white), the more you move it up, the more intense the color gets.

3 – Brightness
Control the brightness, or “blackness” – at the bottom setting you get black, the further you move the slider up, the brighter it gets.

4 – Transparency
Transparent at the bottom, opaque at the top.

5 – Thickness
The thickness of your line – bottom is thin, top is thick. The thickness is also affected by the pressure of the pen.

6 – Fade-Out
Determines how fast a drawing fades out after it has been released by pressing the pushbutton. On the bottom setting the drawings stay opaque, moving the slider up fades them out at an increasing rate.

Launch / Red Button


Button designs by Jayne Vidheecharoen

Animator Controls (Gamepad)

Digital Cross Up – Bring current Tag to Front

Digital Cross Down – Bring current Tag to Back

Left Analogue Stick – Move (Translation)

Right Analogue Stick – Rotate (left/right), Scale (up/down)

Button 1 – Fade current Tag

Button 2 – Fade all Tags

Button 3 – Tag Magnet
Brings current tag to the center of screen.

Button 4 – Select most recent Tag

Button 5 – Kick movement to current Tag
The selected Tag retains the current movement (from the analogue sticks) when you press this one.

Button 6 – Kick movement to all Tags
All Tags retain the current movement (from the analogue sticks) when you press this one. Keep it pressed while moving the sticks to control all Tags.

Button 7 – Select previous Tag

Button 8 – Select next Tag

Button 7 + Button 8 + Button 3 – Take a screenshot
This saves a TIFF image to an USB stick, if present.

Button 7 + Button 8 + Button 4 – Start/stop recording
This starts a Tagtool recording (red flash) or stops it (blue flash).