Copy existing keyframes into action

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luckynth
Posts: 21
Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2014 4:07 pm

Copy existing keyframes into action

Post by luckynth »

Is there a way to copy existing keyframes from the main timeline into an action?
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heyvern
Posts: 7035
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:49 am

Re: Copy existing keyframes into action

Post by heyvern »

With an action activated, right click on the "mainline" in the action palette, and select "insert copy" into the action (or use the action palette buttons). This will insert ALL the keys from the main timeline starting at the key frame you are on in the timeline.

Just be aware that this can "erase" keys that are already in the action. If your action has keys starting at frame 1, and you are on frame 1 in the action and you insert copy from the mainline, it will "erase" the keys in the action.

You can avoid this by moving the time line to a frame AFTER the keys in your action that you may want to keep. Then when you insert the mainline copy, it will place them starting from that frame and leave other keys before it intact.

Hope that makes sense.
luckynth
Posts: 21
Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2014 4:07 pm

Re: Copy existing keyframes into action

Post by luckynth »

heyvern wrote:With an action activated, right click on the "mainline" in the action palette, and select "insert copy" into the action (or use the action palette buttons). This will insert ALL the keys from the main timeline starting at the key frame you are on in the timeline.

Just be aware that this can "erase" keys that are already in the action. If your action has keys starting at frame 1, and you are on frame 1 in the action and you insert copy from the mainline, it will "erase" the keys in the action.

You can avoid this by moving the time line to a frame AFTER the keys in your action that you may want to keep. Then when you insert the mainline copy, it will place them starting from that frame and leave other keys before it intact.

Hope that makes sense.
It does and, as usual, you've helped a lot!
luckynth
Posts: 21
Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2014 4:07 pm

Re: Copy existing keyframes into action

Post by luckynth »

luckynth wrote:
heyvern wrote:With an action activated, right click on the "mainline" in the action palette, and select "insert copy" into the action (or use the action palette buttons). This will insert ALL the keys from the main timeline starting at the key frame you are on in the timeline.

Just be aware that this can "erase" keys that are already in the action. If your action has keys starting at frame 1, and you are on frame 1 in the action and you insert copy from the mainline, it will "erase" the keys in the action.

You can avoid this by moving the time line to a frame AFTER the keys in your action that you may want to keep. Then when you insert the mainline copy, it will place them starting from that frame and leave other keys before it intact.

Hope that makes sense.
It does and, as usual, you've helped a lot!
Wow. Just tried this and its' phenomenally useful. Thanks again.
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dreeko13
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Re: Copy existing keyframes into action

Post by dreeko13 »

Can keyframes be copied from one object to another though?

Example - Say I have a bouncing beach ball animation and I wish to transfer the keyframes of the object moving across the screen to a tennis ball object.
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heyvern
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Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:49 am

Re: Copy existing keyframes into action

Post by heyvern »

dreeko13 wrote:Can keyframes be copied from one object to another though?

Example - Say I have a bouncing beach ball animation and I wish to transfer the keyframes of the object moving across the screen to a tennis ball object.
No, direct copy/paste of key frames isn't possible.

However, in your example depending on how you animated the object you could workaround this.

If you animated with bones, then you can copy and paste the bone that moves the object.When you copy/paste a bone the keys are copied as well.

If you animated the layer, you could duplicate the layer and paste your "new" object on that layer.
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