Editing Time Mapping Curves

The horizontal axis in the editor displays all the time in the animation. The vertical axis displays the time map for the properties' timeline. The key events recorded for an object property are displayed as horizontal dotted lines. The curve in the middle represents the time mapping filter. The point where the curve intersects a key event line tells you exactly when an event occurs. For example, at point A in this timeline, an event that occurred at 0.4 seconds in the original animation, will occur at 0.65 seconds after it's passed through the filter.

The default Time Mapping Curve for any property is a diagonal line. In this curve, time is not being remapped since events occur at the same time along both the horizontal and vertical axes. At point A in the default timeline, an event that occurred at 0.4 seconds in original animation, also occurs at 0.4 seconds in the time map.

When you change the shape of the default curve, you're remapping time.

For example, if you make the curve convex, events occur later in the animation, but they're closer together which means the action at that point in your animation will speed up. In this example you can see that at point A an event that occurred at 0.5 seconds now occurs at 0.71 seconds. At point B an event that occurred at 0.8 seconds now occurs at 0.95 seconds.

Although both events now occur later, there's much less time between them, so the action in your animation occurs later but the changes at that point are faster.

A concave curve would create the same type of effect, except that the events occur earlier. Here, event A and B occur much earlier, within the first half second and the amount of time between them is much less.

Different curve shapes represent different time mapping effects. A flat curve means that no motion is occurring since all the events on the curve are happening at exactly the same point in time. This curve indicates that a pause occurs during the course of the animation.

A steep jump in the curve indicates a sharp increase in speed, as many events occur in a very short time. This curve indicates a sharp increase in speed.

An oscillation in the curve, indicates that events repeat, since they intersect the curve more than once. In this curve event A occurs once at 0.5 seconds and again at 0.75 seconds.

You can combine any variation of curve slopes to create different velocity effects.

While you're editing a Time Mapping Curve, you may want to continuously run the animation preview. As the preview runs, the cross-hairs in the Time Mapping Editor move from the beginning of the animation to the end. This way you can quickly see the effects of your edits. Refer to "Previewing Animations" for more on continuous preview. The counter at the bottom of the editor shows you the current time of the animation. As the animation runs, the counter updates to continuously show the current time.

You can also move the current time by dragging the Current Time bar in the Hierarchy Area.

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