Working with keyframes
Creating, selecting, moving, copying and deleting keyframes on the Timeline, and the row rules that decide how much a click affects.
A keyframe is drawn as a diamond. On a layer's main row the diamond is an aggregate: it appears when any channel of that layer is keyed at that frame. On a sub-track row it is one keyframe on one channel.
That difference decides almost everything below. A click on the main row means the whole layer at that frame; a click on a sub-track row means that one channel.
Creating a keyframe
- Turn on Auto Key and change the layer: the armed channels are keyed for you.
- Press the Add Keyframe diamond in the Timeline header to key every selected layer at the current frame.
- Right-click a layer row and choose Add Keyframe or Update Keyframe.
- Right-click a single sub-track row and choose Add Keyframe to key just that channel.
Keyframes cannot be placed on frame 0, which is the construction frame. When the layer you right-click is part of a multi-selection, the menu's keyframe commands apply to every selected layer.
Selecting keyframes
| Click | Select the keyframe under the cursor |
| Ctrlclick | Add or remove that frame from the selection |
| Shiftclick | Select the range between the last click and this one, across layers |
| Double-click | Select the two keyframes bracketing the span you clicked |
| Ctrldouble-click | Select every keyframe on that layer |
| Drag from an empty cell | Rubber-band box select; hold Ctrl or Shift to add to the selection |
Double-clicking a blank stretch on a layer row selects the whole contiguous blank block instead. Double-clicking between two keyframes of a sub-track selects that channel's bracketing pair, scoped to that row.
The marquee is row-accurate: it starts from any empty cell (a layer row, a sub-track, a bone row or the empty space below the tracks) and takes only the keyframes whose rows the box actually crossed. It waits until the box is a few pixels across before it changes anything, so a slightly shaky click still reads as a click.
What the selection covers
Every selected frame carries a scope with it. If your click or marquee touched a layer's main row, that layer is selected layer-wide: every row highlights, and a move or a delete hits every channel at that frame. If you only touched sub-track rows, only those rows are affected and the layer's other channels stay where they are.
Moving keyframes
Drag a diamond sideways to re-time it. Grabbing a keyframe that is already highlighted moves the whole selection together; grabbing one that is not replaces the selection with just that keyframe. Ghost diamonds preview the destination on every affected row while you drag, and nothing can be dragged earlier than frame 1.
Alt+click between two keyframes on a layer row grabs both of them and drags them live, so the pose slides while you watch rather than jumping on release. Holding Shift during that drag also carries blank-frame markers and video or audio clip starts inside the span you are moving.
A keyframe cycle whose start and end are both inside the moving selection travels with it. See Loop groups.
Copying and pasting
| CtrlC | Copy the selected keyframes, or the current frame if nothing is selected |
| CtrlV | Paste them at the current frame, keeping their spacing |
| Delete | Delete the selected keyframes |
A copy keeps the frame offsets between the keyframes it captured, so pasting a four-frame pattern at frame 40 lays it down over frames 40 to 43. The row scope of the original selection is preserved.
Deleting keyframes
Delete removes the selection when the Timeline has focus; with nothing selected it does nothing, so a stray press cannot cost you a layer. The layer row's right-click menu also offers Delete Keyframe, and a sub-track offers both Delete Keyframe and Delete All Keyframes for that channel.
Right-clicking a sub-track group header (Transform, Style, Layer Effects, a bone) offers Delete All Keyframes for every channel inside that group at once.