Sign in Get Celas Studio
Docs Animation

How animation works

The mental model behind every animated thing in Celas Studio: two modes, a rest frame, and keyframes that record one channel at a time.

This page has not been translated into your language yet, so you are reading the English original.

Celas Studio separates the drawing you make from the movement you give it. You build and fix artwork in one mode, and you record movement in the other. Everything else on the Timeline follows from that split.

This page is the short version of the model. The pages that follow it take each part apart in detail.

Edit mode and Animate mode

A project opens in Edit mode. This is where you draw, rig, re-shape and set up a layer: nothing you do here is recorded, and the Timeline is replaced by the words Edit Mode, because there is nothing to key.

Animate mode is where movement is recorded. The Timeline appears with all of its tracks, the playhead moves, and changing a layer can write a keyframe. Press Tab to switch between the two.

Leaving Animate mode returns the playhead to frame 0 and restores the layer to how you built it. That restore only touches channels that actually own keyframes, so an edit you made in Animate mode to a property you never keyed stays where you put it.

Tab Switch between Edit mode and Animate mode
Space Play or stop
, Previous frame
. Next frame

What frame 0 means

Frame 0 is the construction frame: the rest pose your artwork was built in. It is the frame Edit mode works on, and it holds no animation. Animation lives on frame 1 and up, which is why the playhead cannot sit on frame 0 while you animate and why the Add Keyframe button does nothing there.

A new project starts at frame 1 and runs to frame 24 at 24 frames per second, one second. Start and End are yours to change from the transport bar or by dragging the ends of the blue duration bar on the Timeline ruler.

What a keyframe records

A keyframe is one value, on one channel, at one frame. Position, Rotation, Scale, Opacity, Vertices, a fill colour, a bone angle, an effect parameter: each is its own channel, called a sub-track, and each keeps its own keyframes. A layer can be moving while its colour holds, because those are two separate rows.

Between two keyframes on the same channel, Celas Studio calculates the in-between values for you. The shape of that transition is the easing, and it is stored on the earlier of the two keyframes: a keyframe governs the segment leaving it, not the one arriving at it.

A layer row on the Timeline with two keyframe diamonds and its sub-tracks expanded, showing Position keyed but Opacity empty.

Your first animation

  1. Draw or import something, then press Tab to enter Animate mode.
  2. Turn on Auto Key in the Timeline header. It arms Position, Rotation and Scale by default.
  3. Leave the playhead at frame 1 and move the layer slightly. A keyframe diamond appears on its row.
  4. Drag the playhead to frame 12 and move the layer where you want it to end up. A second diamond appears.
  5. Press Space. The layer travels between the two frames and loops back to the start.
Auto Key only records the channels it is armed for. If a change does not produce a diamond, open the caret next to Auto Key and check that the channel you are editing is ticked.

Where to go next

The Timeline panel page maps every part of the panel. Keyframes covers selecting, moving and deleting them; Sub-tracks explains the property tree; Keying modes covers Auto Key, Relative Keyframing, Auto-Freeze and holding on twos; and Easing covers the shape of the motion in between.

Playback runs in Animate mode only. In Edit mode the playhead stays on the construction frame, so pressing Space there does not advance anything.