All language subtitles for 3. Editing the Curves

Let's take a look at how we go about editing these curves.

To start, I'd like to show you how we add points to the curves.

Remember, each point represents a keyframe on our animation,

so we can go to a frame without a keyframe and add one simply by right-clicking

in the property we want to keyframe and by choosing set key.

So if I go over here and I want to set a key,

I just right-click in the Properties and say Set Key,

and it will add a keyframe along our curve.

Now this is the traditional way, but we can do better,

however, by using the Curve Editor itself.

Click on the curve you want to edit by left-mouse

clicking on the specific curve.

You'll see that the curve will turn yellow.

NUKE is letting you know that the curve has been selected.

With the curve selected,

we can Ctrl+Alt+click anywhere along the curve to add a point or a keyframe.

So if I go over here and hold down Alt and Ctrl,

boom, I've added a keyframe, boom, I've added a keyframe.

If we want to procedurally add a series of keyframes to our animation curve,

we can right-click and go to Edit, and select Generate from the menu.

Now we can choose the options we want for adding a series

of keyframes to the animation curve.

In the Start field, enter the first frame you want to add keys to.

So, let's enter 50, for example.

In the End box, enter the keyframe you want the animation to end on,

let's say, 150.

The increment value tells NUKE how often you wish to lay down a

keyframe within the range of the frames you've told it to consider

with the Start value and the End value.

So let's say we want to key every five frames and just hit OK,

we see it's added those keys between frame 50 and frame 150

at five frame intervals along our curves.

To select individual points on a curve,

you can simply left-click on any of the points to select them.

So I can just click on that point or click on this point,

or click on this point, and that's how you select an individual point.

Holding down the Shift key on the keyboard will allow you to

select multiple points by left-mouse button marquee selecting

the points you wish to become active.

So holding down Shift on the keyboard, I can select these points,

and now these points are active points.

You can also select all of the points on a curve by hitting Ctrl+A,

so if I hit Ctrl+A on the keyboard,

it selects all of the points on all of the curves I have selected.

If I wanted to select just the points on the X curve for example,

I would just highlight the X curve, deselect,

say Ctrl+A, and it will select all of the points on the X curve.

When you do this,

you'll see a box pop up that encompasses all of the points you've selected,

indicating that they've been selected.

To move a point to a new position,

you can simply select the keyframe you wish to move and left-mouse button

drag it to the new position you'd like it to rest on.

You'll notice when you drag,

the movement of this keyframe is locked into your initial

vector that you were dragging the mouse along.

This means if you start dragging the mouse from left to right,

NUKE will assume that you're changing the X position of the keyframe.

So it's locking your drag in the X axis to make life easier for you.

Likewise, if you start by dragging up to down,

it will assume that you're moving things along the Y axis and it's just

locking you into the Y axis to make your life a little easier.

If you want to get crazy and have free-range control over your keyframe,

just hold down Ctrl on your keyboard or the Command button if you're on a Mac,

and NUKE will let you put that point wherever you want.

So if I'm holding down Ctrl and I drag this point out,

you see I can put it wherever I want.

You can also click on any of the points and the coordinates

will pop up right next to the keyframe.

If you double-click on the coordinates,

you can explicitly tell NUKE exactly where you want that

keyframe to be with numeric values.

So if I want to put a 40 in here, and change this to 550,

boom, it's going to move that keyframe right where we want it.

Take note too that by default,

NUKE has a feature called Frame Snapping turned on.

Frame Snapping means NUKE will automatically move the

keyframes in incremented whole numbers.

So if I select this keyframe and move it,

you'll notice that it's moving along the X axis in whole numbers.

Again, this is to make life easier for you as the artist,

but sometimes you really want a specific strange number in one of these values,

so if it suits you, you can right-click and select Edit,

and then there's the Frame Snap option right here,

which you can toggle on or off.

So if I toggle this off and I grab this frame again,

you'll notice that it's moving in very, very fine detail,

and if you want to turn that back on, you just right-click,

turn on Frame Snapping, and it'll start snapping to whole numbers again for you.

You can also move several points around together by

simply having multiple points selected,

and by moving the crosshairs that appear on the

bounding box surrounding your selection.

So if I select multiple points just by marquee selecting them,

this bounding box appears,

and you can move t this bounding box around just by

clicking on the crosshairs and by moving it,

and it follows the same XY rules that we talked about before,

where it's going to constrain you to the axis.

You can also grab these bars on the side and scale the

keyframes along the X or the Y axis.

If you want to grab some frames but not others,

you can hold down Shift on your keyboard and just deselect

the frames you don't want to be modified,

like this, and those frames won't move when you're manipulating this box.

To copy and paste keys, you can select the keys you want to copy,

like these for example,

and you can right- click on the Curve Editor and select Edit,

Copy.

You want to go with Copy Selected Keys.

Copy Selected Keys selects your current keys and copies them into memory.

Copy Curves copies the entire curve.

Copy Expressions copies the expression used to create the curve

if you created the curve with an expression,

and we'll talk about that a little later,

and Copy Links copies an instance to another curve.

This just means your Pasted Curve will be linked to

the new curve you're copying, so if you modify the Source Curve,

later it will also modify the Pasted Curve like a mirror.

So with those keys selected,

I can move the timeline to where I want to paste them,

and I can right-click and go to Paste, Relative,

and it will paste those keys into the curve.

Now if I just undo that change by hitting Ctrl+Z on the keyboard,

you can also select a key and hold down Ctrl+C on the keyboard to copy it,

move the timeline to wherever you want it to be,

and hit Ctrl+V on the keyboard to paste the key.

This is the easiest method and the one that I use the most.

I promised at the end of this clip that we'd take a look at

sketching our own curves in the Curve Editor,

so here it goes.

I'm going to wipe out the animation here on the X and the Y axis,

I'm going to move this back to the center,

I'm going to go to frame one and I'm just going to lay down a single keyframe,

and you'll see the line appear down here in the Curve Editor.

Now that we have a keyframe, the X attribute shows up in the hierarchy.

Now go over to your curve in the Curve Editor,

select it, and hold down Alt+Ctrl+Shift in that order all at once,

and while having those keys held on the keyboard,

you can click on your curve and draw yourself a new curve

however you want it to look or react, and there you have it,

that's how you draw your own custom curve in the Curve Editor.

In the next clip, we'll take a look at modifying parts of the curve.

We'll adjust the slopes of a curve, we'll smooth and filter curves,

and we'll look at the different interpolation methods,

like Constant, Catmull-Rom cubic, Horizontal,

Break.

There are different ways of smoothing a curve,

so we'll take a look at those as well.