Animator Timeline dialog box

Used to view the animated items in a graphical format. You can make adjustments to the critical points such as keyframe frame numbers, graphically, by dragging the point to the new frame. An icon bar at the top of the dialog box provides the necessary tools. Opens when Settings > Timeline is chosen from the Animation Producer dialog box.

Animator Timeline dialog box

You can edit the entries in the Animator Timeline dialog box. Frame markers, in the graphs, are depicted by small black squares. You can click and drag these to change their position in the time line. The precision with which these moves are made is governed by the setting in the Drag Precision field.

For items that have ranges, such as parametric scripts or path motion, you can move the entire range by clicking the line between the two markers and dragging. Clicking the start or end marker only extends the line.

When a keyframe is moved, whether it be an actor keyframe or a scripted keyframe, all entities within the keyframe move also. For example, if a keyframe contains two actors, dragging either one of them causes the other to update accordingly.

Clicking the line in between the markers causes the whole script to move up or down the time line.

Holding <Shift> down while clicking a frame marker lets you copy that script entry and place it elsewhere in the list.

Holding <Ctrl> down while clicking a frame marker lets you edit the script entry.

To	In the icon bar, select
Select elements to display in the Animator Timeline dialog box.	Keyframe Element Select
Set the time scale to frame number or time.	Time Scale
View a key of the graphical color coding.	Show Velocity Key
Set the Text Column Width.	Set Text Column Width
Remove All Entries from the timeline.	Remove All Entries
Sort the items in the dialog box.	Sort List
Add frames to any part of the script	Add Time
Delete frames from any part of the script	Delete Time

Key-in: DIALOG ANIMATOR TIMELINE

You can move items in the tree by selecting the text and dragging the item. You can select multiple items by using <CTRL-Shift> and can remove them with a right mouse click.

Keyframe Element Select

Lets you to select elements from the design to display in the timeline dialog. Each keyframe that the selected element occurs in will be displayed.

Time Scale

Lets you view the time display in either SMPTE (Society for Motion Picture and Television Engineers) time format (Minutes:Seconds:Frames), or frame numbers.

Show Velocity Key

Pressing this button displays a key for the color coding of the lines that appear in the timeline graphs.

Set Text Column Width

Opens the Text Width dialog box which lets you set the number of characters in the text field at the left. The maximum is 75% of the width of the dialog box.

Remove All Entries

Used to remove all entries from the Animator Timeline dialog box.

Sort List

Used to sort the list of items in the Animator Timeline dialog box, based on the setting in the Sort Mode option menu.

• Category (Actor, Light)
— Cyan icons in the tree.

• Action Item (Actor Path, Light Color)
— Green icons in the tree.

• Frame Number
— All items in the tree.

Add Time

Opens the Add Time dialog box, which lets you add frames to any part of the script.

Delete Time

Opens the Delete Time dialog box, which lets you delete frames from any part of the script.