Introducing the Timeline Palette

The Timeline palette, shown in Figure 17.1, appears at the bottom of the interface by default, but you can move it anywhere in the open screen by making it into a floating palette with the Windows, Timeline menu. If the Timeline palette isn’t visible, you can open it using the Window, Timeline (Ctrl/Cmd+[)menu command. You can also resize the Timeline palette by dragging its edges or corners.

Along the top of the Timeline palette are several tabs, control buttons, and a drop-down menu. The available tabs include Channels, Sequencer, and Motion Graph. Each of these tabs changes the Timeline palette’s display. The Channels tab is the default mode showing all the keys for the active channels. The Sequencer tab lets you load and work with audio and video files. This mode is covered in Chapter 19, “Working with Sound,” and the Motion Graph mode is covered in Chapter 18, “Manipulating Animation Graphs.”

Next to the tabs are buttons for deleting, copying, and pasting keys. The Onionskins drop-down list is covered later in this chapter. Directly above the Timeline palette, located along the bottom edge of the main window are fields for displaying the current frame number and the total number of frames. You can change the current frame number and the ending frame number by entering a new value in the Frame and adjacent field. You can also change the current frame number by dragging the time slider or by pressing on the animation control buttons at the bottom left of the working area.

Setting the Frame Range

Any frame value can be entered into the Frame field, but only those frames within the designated frame range will be rendered or exported. The frame range is indicated by the blue area in the Timeline palette directly under the tabs and buttons.

You can alter the frame range using the File, Project Settings dialog box. You can also change the beginning frame of the animation by holding down the Alt/Opt key and clicking the frame in the Timeline palette where you want the animation to start. The end frame can be changed by holding down the Alt/Opt key and clicking with the right mouse button where you want the animation range to end.

Playing a Partial Range

Whenever you click the Play button in the animation controls, the entire frame range is played, but if you hold down the Ctrl/Cmd key and click the frame range bar in the Timeline palette, a green marker is placed on the frame range to mark the starting frame of a partial range. You can also hold down the Ctrl/Cmd key and click with the right mouse button to mark an end frame for the partial range.

Once a partial range is marked, the Play button will only play the partial range instead of the entire range. You can remove the partial range markers by holding down the Ctrl/Cmd key and clicking the markers again.

Viewing Time Markers

Directly beneath the Onionskin bar is a set of numbers that are spread out farther than the frame numbers. These values represent the time in seconds for the current animation. The positions of these time values change as the frame rate changes. Figure 17.2 shows the time markers for a setting of 24 frames per second, so each second aligns with a multiple of 24 frames. The frame rate is set in the Project Settings dialog box.

If you’re working with broadcast video, then time is designated using a timecode that consists of four double-digit numbers for the hours, minutes, seconds, and tenths of seconds. To change the time values in the Timeline palette to reflect these standard timecodes, simply enable the Use SMPTE timecode option in the Preferences dialog box.

Zooming the Timeline

At the top right of the Timeline palette are two buttons marked with a minus sign and a plus sign. These buttons are used to zoom out and zoom in on the current frame settings. By zooming out, you’ll be able to see a wider range of frames, but zooming in makes it easier to work with individual keys.

Figure 17.3 shows the Timeline after it has been zoomed out using the minus sign button.