Zones

What Zones Are

Zones are translucent coloured overlays on the pitch — the classic coaching-board shapes for defensive blocks, pressing zones, passing lanes, or "danger areas". A zone is a full item: it can move, be attached to a player, change shape over time, and have its vertices follow players.

The Three Zone Types

Creating a Zone

1. Click Add Item and pick Polygon Zone, Circle Zone, or Dynamic Zone.
2. Click the pitch — the zone appears (a square polygon / circle / pentagon by default).
3. Click the zone to select it (the centre cross and a small blue selection ring appear at the zone's centre).

The Zone's Track

Each zone (Zone 01…) has:

• Movement — position keys. A zone moves by its centre, so the whole shape glides together.
• Attachment — attach the whole zone to a player or the ball; it follows them during playback.
• Visual — appearance windows (see below).

A zone's keys belong to the branch you have open — each branch has its own timeline, so a zone can sit and change differently in different branches. Switching branches commits your work into the branch you are leaving first. On a child branch the zone's first key at 00:00 is locked (🔒) — inherited from where the parent branch ended.

The Centre Cross — a Zone's Fixed Anchor

Every zone has a small + marker at its centre. This cross is the zone's anchor — the spot where the zone "is" on the pitch. Think of it like the pin on a map:

• The cross sits at the zone's stored centre, set where you placed the zone.
• It only appears while the zone is selected — click the zone to see it, click away to hide it.
• The selection ring (small blue circle) wraps the cross, not the shape. Zones with vertices pulled far to one side still show a small ring at the centre.
• Editing the shape never moves the cross — drag vertices anywhere and the centre stays put; vertices are drawn relative to it.
• Moving the zone moves everything — when you drag the zone (or it follows a player during playback), the cross, the vertices and the whole shape travel together, and any edited shape is preserved exactly.

Default Visual Key

When you place a new zone it starts with a visual key at 0:00 snapshotting how it was placed (shape, radius, colour, opacity). This works like the default graphic key on players and balls: the zone's Visual lane always has a key to start from, so editing a window or morphing between looks behaves predictably from the first second.

Editing a Zone's Shape

1. Select the zone, then open its Zone Visuals editor (click the visual window bar on its track — or press Key Visual first to create one).
2. Click Edit Shape — the editor closes and an EDIT ZONE panel appears:
3. + Add — click on the pitch to insert a new vertex (added on the nearest edge).
4. Move — press and drag a corner directly to reshape the polygon; there is no separate Move button.
5. − Remove — click a vertex dot to delete it (a zone keeps at least 2 vertices).
6. Press the red ✕ on the EDIT ZONE panel to finish — the Zone Visuals editor reopens showing your changes.

Visual Windows (How a Zone Changes Over Time)

A zone's appearance — radius, polygon points, colour, opacity, thickness and vertex attachments — is stored in visual keyframes, shown as window bars on the zone's Visual lane:

1. With the zone selected, move the playhead to the second where the change should start.
2. Click Key Visual — a visual key (and a window bar) appears; the editor opens.
3. Adjust radius (circle zones), colour, opacity, thickness, or Closed/Open (filled vs outline only).
4. Later, move the playhead forward and Key Visual again with a different look — the zone morphs between the two windows as playback passes the key.
5. Click a window bar at any time to re-open and edit that window's snapshot.

Attaching Vertices (Dynamic Zones)

A dynamic zone's vertices can be glued to players or the ball. As those objects move during playback, the zone deforms to follow them — the classic "pressing trap" that tracks the nearest defender.

1. Create a Dynamic Zone and open its Zone Visuals editor.
2. You'll see one row per vertex: V1, V2, V3…, each with a Link button.
3. Click Link next to a vertex, then click a player (or the ball) on the pitch.
4. While linking, a message appears at the top of the viewport: "Click a player or the ball to attach this point" — press Esc to cancel.
5. The row now shows who that vertex follows (e.g. → Player 3 (H)). Use the small ✕ to unlink.
6. Play — the attached vertices ride along with their players, and the zone reshapes live.

Attaching the Whole Zone

You can also attach the entire zone to a player or the ball (like the ball's attachment):

1. Select the zone, click Key Attachment on its track.
2. Click the player or ball to follow — the zone's centre stays glued to it from that second.
3. Add a Detach key later to free it.

Copy, Colour & Remove

• Copy / Paste — copy a zone's full configuration onto another zone.
• Colour / Opacity / Thickness — edit in the Zone Visuals editor (and per visual window).
• Remove — select the zone and use the remove option; its track disappears.

Read on: Undo & Redo → Saving, Loading & Sharing.