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Animation Control

Intro

Remap an attribute's animation curve (e.g. from the first to the last keyframe) to a percentage.

The Animation Control can be thought of as a way to horizontally 'scale' the animation curve. For example, if an attribute had several keyframes spanning over a total of 100 frames, connecting an Animation Control to that attribute and setting keyframes for...

  • Amount = 0 at frame 0
  • Amount = 100 at frame 50

...would result in the same animation happening in half the time, therefore doubling in speed. This is the equivalent of using the Transform tool in the Time Editor to scale the keyframes.

Animation Curve

An animation curve is best visualised in the Graph Editor. It's the line connecting the keyframes which starts at the first keyframe and ends at the last. In the Time Editor it is represented by the coloured line that connects the keyframes.

Using an Animation Control means that one attribute can be rigged to trigger another attributes animation. For example, by connecting a Shape's position.y attribute to an Animation Control's Amount attribute, when that Shape moves up, it can be used to drive the animation curve of another Shape.

UI

Active - When checked, the Animation Control is active.

Amount - A value between 0 and 100 where 0 = the first keyframe and 100 = the last keyframe.

Example
  1. Create 4 keyframes on the Position X channel of a Basic Shape.
  2. Connect animationControl.id > basicShape.position.x.
  3. Scrub Amount on the Animation Control layer.

As you move the Amount from 0 to 100, the Basic Shape will animate between its first and last (4th) keyframe.

caution

It's not possible to edit keyframes on an attribute connected to an active Animation Control. Uncheck Active to allow this.