Customize the Time Slider

Resize the Time Slider

You can resize Maya's Time Slider the same way as other elements in the interface by hovering your cursor over the top edge until it turns into a splitter cursor, and dragging up or down.

The Time Slider height is saved with the workspace; these settings persist until they are manually changed (or the Preferences have been reset).

Reduce Time Slider splitter bar cursor reactivity

If the changing of the cursor to the splitter bar cursor is too distracting when the cursor passes over the Time Slider, you can change the following Option Variable:

  optionVar -iv "splitterHandleMargin" 3

To increase the splitter cursor triggering, set a greater value.

The default setting is 3, the maximum is 8.

Disable the Time Slider splitter bar cursor

To turn off the splitter cursor so it does not appear, go to the prefs/workspaces/ section of the Maya .json file and change heightProperty from fixed to free.

Key ticks

Key Ticks are red (by default) marks in the Time Slider that represent the keyframes you set for the selected object. When keys are selected, they appear white while highlighted blue (see Selecting keys on the Time Slider for an example). Breakdown keys are a special type of key displayed as green marks in the Time Slider.

To set the thickness of your keyframes in the Time Slider

Select Windows > Settings/Preferences > Preferences.
The Preferences window appears.
In the Time Slider section, set the Key Tick Size preference setting.
Key thickness is measured in pixels. The minimum key thickness is 1 pixel and the maximum is 63 pixels.

To set the color of a curve’s keyframes in the Time Slider

In the Graph Editor graph view, select a curve.
In the Graph Editor menu bar, select Curves > Spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet for the selected animation curve appears in the Attribute Editor.
Choose a Curve Color and turn on Use Curve Color.
All the curve’s keyframes in the Time Slider are now the Curve Color you selected.

To set the color of individual keyframes in the Time Slider

Select Windows > Settings/Preferences > Color Settings > Animation.
Choose a Time Slider Tick Special color and click Save.
In the Graph Editor, select the keyframe(s) you want drawn in the Time Slider Tick Special color.
In the Command Line or Script Editor, enter the keyframe MEL command with the -tickDrawSpecial(-tds) flag as follows:
keyframe -tds on

and then press Enter on the number pad.

The keyframes you selected and set the -tds flag for are now drawn with Time Slider Tick Special color in the Time Slider.

For more information on this flag, see keyframe in the MEL Command Reference documentation.
Note:
- The Time Slider Tick Special color preference overrides the key color set by the Curve Color attribute.
- If you have multiple keys at the same time in the Time Slider, and one of those keys has its -tds flag set to on, then the Time Slider Tick Special color will take precedence over the other key colors.

To show curve color coding above keys

Right-click the Time Slider and select Color Coded Keys from the Animation Controls menu.

Color Coded Keys are color "beads" that appear above key ticks that show on which curve the key was set: Translation (blue), Rotation (yellow), Scaling (green), or other (white) curve to give feedback on your animation.

Time Slider Colors

You can customize the color settings for the Time Slider to increase visibility, especially for larger timelines.

To open the color settings for the Time Slider

Select Windows > Settings/Preferences > Color Settings.
In the Color Settings window, expand the Animation heading.

To change the color of the Current Time Indicator

Change the Time Slider Current Frame setting. (Click the color tile, then select a new color.)

To change the color of the Time Slider foreground or background

Change the Time Slider Foreground and Time Slider Background settings.