Basic question: Working with keyframes

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Nosehat
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Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 9:07 pm

Basic question: Working with keyframes

Post by Nosehat »

Hi all--

I picked up this software months ago, but I've only recently had the time to really dive into it. I really like it so far, but it's my first experience with animation software of any kind, so I'm learning as I go. So, sorry if this is a very basic question. :P

I'm doing a lot of animation by moving points around in vector layers, to change a character's expression on their face for example. The problem is, I think I'm doing it in an unnecessarily labor-intensive way.

If I want the expression to change between frames 70 and 80, for example, I'll first go to 70 and slightly wiggle all the points in the face (sometimes dozens of them) to make a keyframe for each one. Then I'll go to 80 and move the points into the new expression. If I neglect to wiggle each point at 70 to lock it in, the neglected points will drift slowly to the new position from frame 1, which can be a huge problem especially if the character itself is moving. This method can quickly get out of hand if I'm changing other things too, like colors (if the character blushes), or line thicknesses, etc. I'm spending a lot of my time wiggling!

So my question is this: Is there an easy way to create a keyframe for all the aspects of a layer (position of all the points, colors, line thicknesses, rotation, scaling, etc) at a given frame? Surely my "wiggle method" is not the best way to do this!

Thanks in advance!
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synthsin75
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Post by synthsin75 »

If you right click on the point motion animation channel and select 'add keyframe' this will key all of that layer's points. Alternately, you can Ctrl+A to select all the points and just do a quick click in the workspace with any point moving tool (i.e. translate, rotate, scale).

:wink:

p.s. There is also a script somewhere that keys all the channels with one button.
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mkelley
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Post by mkelley »

Key_All -- It's a JS script, I do believe.

I've modified it for my own use (can't remember why, but it didn't work as I wanted) but basically it allows you to assign the key function to a single key (so I just press "K" whenever I want to add keys for that layer).
Nosehat
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Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 9:07 pm

Post by Nosehat »

Thanks for the quick replies. That should make things go faster :D
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