All language subtitles for 2. Viewing an Animation Curve in the Editor

In this clip, we'll take a look at displaying curves in the Curve Editor,

hiding and un-hiding animation, zooming in and out,

panning around, relative framing,

and resetting the pan and zoom in case you get lost.

So I wanted to just take a moment here to point out that

this is a hierarchy that has little twisties that usually

show up as plus or minuses,

and if a value is collapsed like this with a plus and you select it,

all of the curves for all of the values inside of that

attribute will show up here on the Curve Editor.

Likewise, if we click on this plus button,

and we go into this value,

we see that it has an X and a Y value that both have keyframes.

So on either one of these we can just select the X to see the X curve,

or we can select the Y to see the Y curve,

or if we select their parent node, the Translate,

like we did at the beginning, we see both curves together.

So it's just something to keep in mind with how this hierarchy system works.

So if I click in here to deselect these curves and I want to

create a consecutive list of attributes or curves that I want

to show in the Curve Editor,

I can hold down Shift on the keyboard and just select

the curves that I want to appear,

and I could just continue going down the line holding

the Shift button to add these curves.

Likewise,

you can hold the Ctrl button if you want to unselect some

of these curves on an individual basis and remove or add

them to your selection set.

You can also display an audio file in here just like we did in the Dope Sheet.

So if you have an AudioRead Node or a Read Node with audio

data in it ready to go in your comp,

what you can do is you can right-click in the Curve Editor and navigate to View,

then to Audio, then to Draw Style, and check this box below on,

and your wave form will appear below.

Likewise, you can go back to the same menu by right-clicking,

going to View, Audio, Draw Style,

and selecting off to just get rid of that audio if you don't want it visible.

Now to zoom in and out of the Curve Editor,

you can click on the area you'd like to zoom into and hit F

on the keyboard to frame that selection.

This is a great hotkey that I use all the time.

So if I marquee select these keyframes, for example,

and hit F on the keyboard, it's going to jump me right to it.

Likewise, you can just use the scroll button on your mouse to scroll in and out,

and that will zoom out or zoom in based on the way that you're scrolling.

Another thing to know is on the keyboard if you have a plus and a minus button,

you can use plus and minus to just zoom in and zoom

out on a very fine detail level.

Now let's say you get stuck because you're really in a

fine granular view of this thing.

So if I select these things and I hit F,

and I'm deep in here and I don't know where I am,

and I can't find my curves, and you want to reset the view,

to reset the zoom or pan, just right-click on the Curve Editor,

select View, and then select Frame All.

And Frame All will jump you back out to view all of your keyframes.

Keep in mind that this view will only give you a view of your curve

from its first keyframe to its last keyframe.

It won't give you anything beyond because it's just assuming

that you want to work with the keyframes that you have at hand

when you're in the Curve Editor.

Now this function also has a hotkey that's really nice,

so just like we use the F button to zoom in,

and if we're in here and we get lost,

instead of having to right-click and go to these menus,

what you can do is you can just hit A on the keyboard,

and that's easy to remember because you're hitting A to view all.

Both of these hotkeys have been lifesavers for me in the past so I hope that

you put them in your toolbox and use them quite a bit.

There are two ways that you can pan the editor: one is by holding down the

Alt button on your keyboard and by left-mouse dragging.

So if I hold down Alt on my keyboard and left-mouse button click,

I can just pan around in here and see exactly where I need to go.

Likewise, you can just middle-mouse button and drag,

and that will pan the viewer as well.

So in this clip,

I just wanted to take a minute to point out the different ways

to pan and zoom inside the Curve Editor,

how to jump to specific frames, and how to reset your view if you get lost,

which believe me, happens quite a bit.

Now in the next clip,

we'll take a look at editing these curves by adding

and removing points to the curve, moving the points,

and how copying and pasting points works inside of these curves.

We'll also take a look at how you can sketch an animation

curve right in the Curve Editor instead of having to lay out

keyframes in the parameter window.