Keyframe library

The keyframe library keeps poses and animations of a character, such as mouth shapes for lip sync or a walk cycle, so you can apply them again in any project. Open it with View → Keyframe library.

The library holds two kinds of items:

• A pose is a single frame: the values of some parts at the playhead.
• An animation is a run of keyframes over a range of frames. Its keyframes are stored relative to the start of the range, so it can be placed anywhere on the timeline.

Saving a pose

1. Select the parts of a character that belong to the pose. Select the character itself to use all of its parts.
2. Press New pose and type a name.

A pose only stores the parts you selected, so you can keep body and face poses apart. It stores their position, rotation, scale, bend and visibility at the playhead.

Saving an animation

1. Mark the frames to save. Either set a timeline region, or select keyframes: the range then runs from the first to the last selected keyframe.
2. Select the parts that belong to the animation. Select the character itself to use all of its parts, including the movement of the character.
3. Press New animation and type a name.

Every keyframe of the selected parts inside the range is saved, together with its transition and easing. The movement and rotation of the character itself are stored as offsets, so a walk cycle moves the character on from wherever it stands.

Thumbnails

The thumbnail is a square render of the current view, so frame the character before saving. Animations also get a short preview that plays while you hover over them. Right-click an item and choose Refresh thumbnail from view to render it again. For an animation, the preview plays the timeline region or the selected keyframes, or else the frames from the playhead.

Applying items

Select the character, or some of its parts, and double-click an item.

• A pose is keyed at the playhead.
• An animation is inserted from the playhead.

Only parts the item contains are changed. With parts selected, only those parts change.

The Apply animation buttons decide what happens to keyframes already in the range of an animation:

Option	What it does
Replace	Removes the existing keyframes of the changed parts in the range first.
Merge	Keeps the existing keyframes and only overwrites those at the same frames.

Right-click an item for more:

Option	What it does
Apply flipped	Applies the item mirrored, swapping left and right parts. Works for poses and animations.
Blend pose	Move the mouse sideways to mix the pose into the current one, then click to confirm. Right-click or Escape cancels. Poses only.
Blend flipped	Blend pose, mirrored. Poses only.
Select parts	Selects the parts the item contains.
Replace with selected parts	Stores the selected parts as the new content. For an animation, the current range is used.
Add selected parts	Adds the selected parts to the item.
Remove selected parts	Removes the selected parts from the item.
Refresh thumbnail from view	Renders the thumbnail again from the current view.

Applying an item can be undone and syncs in co-op like any other keyframe edit.

Catalogs

Catalogs are folders for items and can be nested. Items outside any catalog are under Unassigned.

• Press the folder button next to the search field to add a catalog inside the selected one.
• Drag items and catalogs onto a catalog to move them.
• Double-click a catalog to rename it, or right-click it to rename or delete it. Deleting a catalog moves its contents up a level.

Use the search field to filter items by name, the Type buttons to show only poses or animations, and the size buttons to change the thumbnail size.

Examples

Lip sync. Make a face catalog with one pose per mouth shape (A, E, I, O, U, F/V, M/B/P), saved from the mouth parts only. Blocking lip sync is then a double-click per syllable.

Motion cycles. Make a catalog with animations such as walk, run and idle, saved from the whole character. Apply them to any character with the same parts, and use Apply flipped to start on the other foot.

Sharing the library

The library is a folder of files, set in Preferences → Program → Keyframe library folder. Every project uses the same library. Point several computers at a shared folder to use the same items everywhere.

Pose libraries from earlier versions are moved into the keyframe library automatically.