Manual Reference Animation Timeline Menu
F-Curves
Activate this setting to display the change in value for all F-Curves. Pictured above is a Y-position curve and its velocity curve that displays the F-Curve’s mathematical derivation. Velocity curves will always be displayed in a dark tone of the corresponding F-Curve’s color.
This functionality lets you easily recognize at which time in the animation a lot of action takes place – the greater the velocity, the higher the curve will rise (positive velocity) or sink (negative velocity).
Normally, only F-Curves of tracks selected in the Objects Area will be displayed. Activate this setting if you want to display all F-Curves, independent of all selections.
Activate this setting if the keys of all visible F-Curves should be displayed. If no keys should be displayed at all, deactivate this setting and the next setting (Show Keys of Selected Curves).
Activate this setting if only keys of selected F-Curves should be displayed. Show All Keys should be deactivated.
Activate this setting if only the tangents of selected keys should be displayed. Show All Tangents should be deactivated.
Activate this setting if all tangents of all visible keys should be displayed. If no tangents should be displayed at all, deactivate this setting and the Show Tangents of Selected Keys setting.
Activating this mode lets you move selected F-Curves by dragging a selected F-Curve to a new position. Remember that all key values and key times (for that F-Curve) will also change accordingly.
Let’s say you have several F-Curves with vastly differing Key values. The Key values of one group range from 10-100 and those of the other group from 10000-12000. You can imagine that the curves probably won’t be displayed together on the Timeline.
Activating the Auto Relative setting will place all selected F-Curves within a value range between 0-100, regardless of their actual Key values. Each of these F-Curves that were detached from the normal Timeline display will be marked with an R (Relative) next to their respective track names. Activating this setting will give you a good overview of all F-Curves involved.
We suggest you activate Navigation / Show All in conjunction with Auto Relative which will display the F-Curves to their maximum vertical height.
If you used Auto Relative (automatic) or the track settings’ F-Curve Offset and F-Curve Scale properties (manual) to quasi detach the keys from the Timeline’s Y-axis naming convention, select Reset Relative to revert the selected F-Curves’ keys to the appropriate naming convention.
The Snapshot Functionality
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| You can switch between the Snapshot curve and the F-Curve at any time. |
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to:
- Temporarily save the state of a given F-Curve (Snapshot)
- Make this state visible and Simultaneously compare it to the curve’s current edited state and
- Switch between current and Snapshot state at any time?
Well, this is exactly what the Snapshot functionality lets you do!
The Snapshot curves will be displayed in dark gray and will not affect the animation unless you activate them via Swap Snapshot (will, in turn, deactivate the currently active curve).
This temporary snapshot is only valid while a track is still selected. As soon as a different track is selected the snapshot for the previously selected curve will no longer exist. This cannot be used in conjunction with the Show All Tracks mode!
Use this setting to turn the Snapshot functionality on or off. Deactivate this setting to hide the curve snapshots.
Use this setting to create a temporary snapshot of all existing F-Curves. Since Snapshot curves are exact duplicates of the original curves, they will not be visible until changes have been made to the original curve. Selecting Create Snapshot again will overwrite the previous Snapshot curves. Each time Create Snapshot is selected, new Snapshot curves will be created for the corresponding F-Curves.
Use this setting to switch between the Snapshot curve and active curve.