Use the animation controls

With Maya’s animation controls, you can key objects, manage your scene’s timeline, and play back animation. See also Animation controls.

To display the Time Slider

1. You can hide or display the Time Slider by selecting Windows > UI Elements > Time Slider.

Hiding the Time Slider provides more Maya view space. See also Time Slider.

To display the Range Slider

1. You can hide or display the Range Slider by selecting Windows > UI Elements > Range Slider

Hiding the Range Slider also hides the Animation Preferences button and the Auto Key button. For more information, see Range Slider.

To change the current time

1. Click anywhere on the Time Slider.

   Where you click with your mouse becomes the current time and the scene jumps to that time in the animation.

2. Do one of the following:
   • Drag the mouse in the Time Slider.
   • Hold down the K key as you drag horizontally in any view.

   The scene updates with your mouse action.

   • Middle-click in the Time Slider.
   • Hold down the K key and middle-drag horizontally in any view.

   Your scene does not update, but the Current Time Indicator moves to show your new current time. This is useful, for example, if you want to key an object at some frame based on a prior position of other objects. For more information, see Time Slider.

   Note:

   The K key operations work the same in all Maya windows that display a timeline, for instance, the Graph Editor.

The Range Slider bar lets you control the playback range of your animation up to the limits of the Animation Start/End settings. For more information, see Range Slider.

To change the playback range with the Range Slider

1. Do one of the following:
   • Drag the Range Slider bar to move it.
   • Drag the boxes at the ends of the Range Slider to scale the playback range.
   • Double-click the Range Slider bar to set the playback range to the range values in the Animation Start/End fields of the Preferences window. To return to the prior playback range, double-click the Range Slider bar again. See Time Slider preferences in the Preferences and Customization chapter of the Basics guide.

To move and scale a range of animation with the Time Slider

1. Shift-drag along the Time Slider to select a range of time or double-click the Time Slider to select the entire range.

   The selected time range is red, with start and end frames shown in white numbers at the ends of the selection block. See Time Slider.

2. Do one of the following:
   • To scale the keys in the selected range of the Time Slider, drag the black arrows at either end of the selected range.
   • To move the keys in the selected range along the Time Slider, drag the black double arrows at the center of the selection.