Animation Palette

Animation Palette in the animation layout.

The Animation Palette contains the most-used navigation and recording tools from the Timeline itself. This bears the advantage of not having to constantly switch to the animation layout, thus speeding up workflow.

The Animation Palette consists of the following three main elements:

If you define Preview Range in the main menu’s Animation | Play Mode menu, only the preview range will be played over and over (cycled).

Naturally the Animation Palette communicates with the Timeline, i.e., keys created or deleted here will also be created and deleted in the Timeline.

Current image as well as the beginning and end of a document can also be set numerically (see above image).

To jump to a specific point in your animation simply click on the top half of the Timeline Ruler or drag the current frame to the desired location (during which the animation will play in the editor view). If you do not want the animation to play, press the ALT-key while dragging the frame.

Editing Keys:

Context Menu

Right-clicking on the Timeline Ruler or Powerslider will open a menu with the following options:

The following 7 commands should already be familiar to you from the Timeline. These can be used to modify the key interpolation for selected keyframes.

Linear

Step

See Linear.

Spline

See Spline.

Spline types

Soft

See Soft.

Ease In

Ease Out

Ease Ease

See Ease In.

Cut

Copy

Paste

Paste In Place

Delete

These functions will affect the keys that lie within a given selection. Cut will delete the keys and save them to the clipboard. These keys can then be pasted to another location or into another selection using Paste in Place. When using Paste in Place the keys will be scaled proportionally to fit the selection. Copy saves the keys to the clipboard without deleting them and Delete removes the keys. Alternately you can use the keyboard combinations Ctrl/Cmd + X, Ctrl/Cmd + C, Ctrl/Cmd + V and Backspace / Delete.

Options

Ripple Edit

This option determines if the pasted keys should be pasted over existing keys (Ripple Edit deactivated) or if a range in a corresponding length should be created before the existing selected area, whereby subsequent keys will be pushed farther down the timeline.

When keys are deleted (Ripple Edit active) subsequent keys will automatically be moved to the left accordingly.

Show Inactive Keys

If a track is selected in the Timeline, only the keys for this track can be edited in the Animation Palette, even though keys on other tracks will still be visible. Activating this option lets you better differentiate between active and inactive keys.

Unlink Time

Activating this option will unlink the Powerslider (bottom left half) from the Timeline Ruler (top half). Only the Timeline’s preview area will be defined by the Powerslider. The animation range will remain unchanged.

Use Time Format

Activating this option will display the time format, as defined in the program presets (e.g., frames or SMPTE), in the animation range.

Advanced Mode

The differences in functionality between the default Animation Palette and the Advanced Mode are nominal. All functions described for the default mode can be used in the Advanced Mode. The exceptions are explained below.

The Advanced Mode was implemented in order to offer those switching from other applications a familiar environment.

Differences

The most obvious difference is the look of the Keys and selected elements.

So, what’s the difference between the Advanced Mode and the default (normal) mode?

No Split

(only in Advanced Mode)

Visually, no difference will be seen between Position, Scale or Rotation Keys if this option is enabled. Keys will always be displayed as vertical lines that span the entire height of the Timeruler.

Disable this option in order to get a better overview of Key types:

Split Transform Keys

(only in Advanced Mode)

Position, Scale and Rotation Keys are arranged in different colors and at different locations vertically on the Timeruler:

Split Vector Keys

(only in Advanced Mode)

When enabled, the Position, Scale and Rotation Keys’ X, Y and Z components will be assigned different colors and positions along the Timeruler:

Edit

Reverse Sequence

All keys within a given selection will be reversed, i.e., the animation will run in reverse.

Shift Left

Shift Right

A given selection, including keys, will be moved either to the far left or far right of the visible animation range.

Fill

A given selection, including keys, will be scaled so that the left-most key lies at the far left and the right-most key lies at the far right of the visible Timeline range.

Trim to Work Area

This option sets the document length and time to the values defined by the Powerslider.

Expand to Full Time

This option does the opposite of what Trim to Work Area does. The Powerslider will take up the complete document length. Alternately you can Ctrl/Cmd + A + click on the Powerslider.

Delete Markers

Deletes all markers.

Show Soundwave

A sound track loaded via the Timeline’s Create / Add Special Tracks / Sound command can be displayed in the Powerslider. This makes it easier to create a soundtrack synchronous to the animation.

If multiple sound tracks are being used a menu will appear from which you can select the desired track.

Quantize

(only in Advanced Mode)

Enabling this option lets you set keys that do not lie entirely on a full Frame (e.g., on Frame 34.4) to the nearest full Frame (in this case to Frame 34).