Right-click anywhere on the
Time Slider to display a menu for animation control operations. These operations work on keys of the currently selected objects.
- Cut,
Copy, and
Delete
- Cut,
Copy, and
Delete affect the keys at the current time or in the selected ranges.
Cut and
Copy place the selected keys on an internal clipboard for pasting, and
Delete removes the selected keys from the timeline.
Copy,
Cut, and
Delete also operate on integer time ranges. For example, if your current time is 5, these items act on the range of 5 up to 6, but not including any keys at time 6.
- Paste
- Paste puts any copied or cut keys from the clipboard at the current time.
Paste > Paste Connect pastes copied keys the same as if you select
with the
Connect option turned on.
- There are two ways to paste keys into the
Time Slider:
- Click the time where you want the pasted keys to start. Existing keys beyond that time will be shifted by the time range of the pasted keys.
- To fit the keys into a particular time range, Shift-click the
Time Slider to select a time range. The keys will be scaled to fit that range. Existing keys in the selected area are removed.
- Snap
-
Use
Snap to force selected keys to snap in time to the nearest whole time units.
- Keys
-
-
Convert to Key converts selected Breakdowns to normal keys.
-
Convert to Breakdown converts normal keys to Breakdowns.
-
Add Inbetween adds a single Inbetween.
-
Remove Inbetween removes a single Inbetween.
- Tangents
-
The
Tangents item will set the tangent of the keys at the current time, or all the keys in a selected time range.
-
- Spline creates an animation curve that is smooth between the key before and the key after the selected key.
- Linear creates an animation curve as a straight line joining two keys.
- Clamped creates an animation curve that has the characteristics of linear and spline curves.
- Stepped creates an animation curve whose out tangent is a flat curve.
- Flat sets the in and out tangents of the key to be horizontal (with a slope of 0 degrees).
- Plateau eases animation curves in and out of their keyframes like spline tangents, but also flatten curve segments that occur between equal-valued keyframes like clamped tangents.
- Auto clamps curve values between frames to a maximum or minimum point based on the adjacent keyframe values.
- For more description of each of these tangent types, see
Graph Editor Tangents menu.
- Grease Pencil
-
Lets you set how
Grease Pencil frames display in the
Time Slider. Default is
Active, so that Grease Pencil frames display for the current camera only.
-
Set to
None if you don't want Grease Pencil frames to display in the
Time Slider, or set to
All if you want to see all Grease Pencil frames regardless of the active camera. See also
Control display of Grease Pencil frames in the Time Slider.
- See
Grease Pencil for more information.
- Time Slider Bookmarks
-
-
Time Slider Bookmarks are colored tags along the top of the
Time Slider that flag events in your scene. Bookmarks let you draw attention to specific moments in time, which is useful when you want to focus or highlight specific areas or moments in your scene.
-
Add a Bookmark to a selected frame or time range by clicking
or by clicking the Bookmark icon
in the
Range Slider or pressing
Alt (Option) +
T.
-
Create
Opens the Create Bookmark dialog so you can add a bookmark to the selected frames. If no frames are selected, enter the bookmark range in the Start and End frame fields.
-
Edit
Opens the Create Bookmark dialog for the bookmark at the current time. (If multiple bookmarks overlap, the bookmark on top (the newest-created) is selected.)
-
Frame Bookmark
Centers the playback range on the bookmarks at the current time, so that the bookmark area takes up the entire range. (If multiple bookmarks overlap, the bookmark on top (the newest-created) is selected.)
Hotkey: | (vertical bar)
-
Frame Previous Bookmark
Centers the Range Slider on the bookmark before the bookmark at the current time.
Hotkey: : (colon)
-
Frame Next Bookmark
Centers the Range Slider on the bookmark after the bookmark at the current time.
Hotkey: , (comma)
-
Unframe
Returns the Time Slider view to the play range.
Hotkey: Alt (Option) + \ (backslash)
-
Delete
Deletes the top-most bookmark at the current time.
-
Show Bookmarks
Toggles Bookmark visibility.
-
Delete All Bookmarks
Removes all bookmarks from the scene.
-
BookmarkManager
Opens the Bookmark Manager window.
See
Create a Bookmark for more.
- Cached Playback
- Lets you activate and configure
Cached Playback to improve animation playback performance.
-
- Cached Playback
- Turn on this option to cache animation to memory to improve playback speed. See
Use Cached Playback to improve playback speed.
- Caching modes
- Choose from
Evaluation cache,
Viewport software cache, or
Viewport hardware cache to optimize
Cached Playback for your computer's hardware. See
Choose a mode for Cached Playback for descriptions of these modes.
- Flush Cache
-
- Empties the playback cache, and discards the contents so that everything must be rebuilt. Because the data is immediately deleted, it may be slower than cache invalidation. Use Flush Cache when you want to wipe the cache clean. See the
Invalidation section of the
Cached Playback status line states topic. (You can also flush the cache from the right-click menu of the Cached Playback icon
in the
Playback Options.)
- Cached Playback Preferences
- Opens the
Cached Playback Preferences window so you can configure
Cached Playback.
- Color preferences
- Opens the
Color Settings window directly to the Cached Playback color settings, where you can change the default coloring of every part of Cached Playback that appears on the
Time Slider. You can pick a color for cached, uncached and invalidated frames and subframes. You can even set transparency for the Cached Playback Status line with the opacity settings.
- Playback Speed
-
Lets you set the playback speed or frame rate of your current scene.
-
- Real-time
-
Sets the playback speed of your current scene to 24 frames per second.
- Play Every Frame, Free
-
Sets the playback speed of your current scene to play every frame and not be clamped to a specific maximum frame rate.
- Play Every Frame, Max Real-time
-
Sets the playback speed of your current scene to play every frame and be clamped to a maximum frame rate of
24 frames per second.
- Display Key Ticks
- Lets you set the source of the key ticks shown on the Time Slider. Choose:
- Active: keys set on the active object. This is the default.
- From Channel Box: keys set in the
Channel Box. See
Set keys in the Channel Box.
- None: does not show key ticks on the
Time Slider.
- Show Layer Weight: shows the weight animation for a selected layer.
- From Layer Editor Show Options: uses whatever setting is active in the
Animation Layer Editor menu bar
Show menu.
- All Affecting: shows keys for all affected animation layers. (All layers that contain attributes of objects selected in the scene.).
- Active: shows only keys from active layers.
- Selected: shows only keys from selected animation layers.
- Active and Selected: shows keys from both active and selected animation layers.
See
View layered animation for more information.
- Playback Looping
-
To select playback looping options, right-click the
Time Slider and select
Playback Looping > Once,
Oscillate, or
Continuous (For a demonstration of this behavior, see
Loop in
Playback Options.) These are the same options as using the Loop icon
in the
Playback Options and the
Preferences window.
- Set Range To
-
-
Start/End sets the playback range to the
Start and
End values set in the Playback Range numeric input fields.
-
Min/Max sets the playback range to the first and last keys of the scene.
-
Selected sets the playback range to the range defined by the current selection on the
Time Slider.
-
Enabled clips sets the playback range to include the range of all enabled clips.
-
Sound Length sets the playback range to the duration of a sound currently loaded into the
Time Slider.
-
Preferences sets the playback range to the values in the
Preferences window.
- Time Display
-
-
Select what format Time information appears on the Time Marker:
- Frames: Displays frames on all time rulers, current time markers, and input fields which display or accept time.
- Timecode: Displays video standard timecode on all time rulers, current time markers, and input fields which display or accept time.
- Timecode and frames on Time Marker: Displays video standard timecode on timemarkers while time rulers shown frames. This is the legacy display when
Timecode is set in the in the
Time Slider options in the
Time Slider Preferences
- Enable Stepped Preview
-
Lets you toggle
Stepped Preview mode on and off, easily switching curves from Spline to Stepped tangents and back. When on, keys temporarily display with Stepped tangents, so playing back your animation gives a quick view of object positions as they hit each keyframe. When off, the animation plays as usual with the original tangents. See also
Stepped tangents.
- Auto snap keys
-
-
When on, keys snap to the nearest whole frame when they are moved or scaled. When scaling, if two keys snap to the same frame, they merge together into one key. This preference is off by default.
Tip: You can also select
Windows > Settings/Preferences > Preferences > Time Slider > Auto snap keys.
- Audio
-
-
This menu lets you select an imported sound to be displayed on the Time Slider.
Select
.
- Playblast
-
Selecting this opens the
Playblast window. Selecting the option box () opens the
Playblast Options
window.