Copying Keyframe Animation

Copy keyframes lets you copy a range of keyframes from an animated object, and place them on the keyframe clipboard for pasting somewhere else.

Overview

When working with animated sequences it is often necessary to copy a sequence from one object to another, or to repeat a sequence. Copy keyframes and Paste keyframes provide a simple way to do this.

Copy keyframes lets you select an object and specify a range of keyframes from the object's animations to copy. The selected keyframes are then copied to a keyframe clipboard, which lets you mirror or paste the keyframes onto another object (or even back onto itself).

How to Use

1

Pick an animated object and select Edit > Copy keyframes.

The system prompts:

Enter the frame range to copy (start, end):

To copy a single frame, type the same frame number for both the start and end frame.

2

To copy the animation between frame 30 and 60, for example, type:

30 60

See Animation > Paste keyframes on page 70 for information on how to paste keyframes.

3

To paste the animation somewhere else, use Edit > Paste keyframes.

Copy Keyframes Options

Select Copy keyframes - to display the Copy Keyframes Options window.

Parameters

• All - keyframes are copied from every animatable parameter of the object.

To select different global animation parameters, see Animation > Param control on page 19.

• Global - keyframes are only copied from the parameters that are selected in the GLOBAL parameter control window.

To select different local animation parameters, see Animation > Param control on page 19.

• Local - keyframes are only copied from the parameters that are selected in the LOCAL parameter control window.

Hierarchy

• None - keyframes are copied from only the selected objects.

• Above - keyframes are copied from the selected objects and all objects above their DAG nodes.

• Below - keyframes are copied from the selected objects and all objects below their DAG nodes. Note that keyframes will be copied from all the geometry below a picked DAG node, including any animated CVs.

• Both - includes both Above and Below.

If set to Segment, and if either the start frame or the end frame lie outside the defined range of the animation, keyframes that correspond to the extrapolation setting for the curve are copied to the keyframe clipboard (See the section describing the Action Tools menu in The Action Window on page 138 for details about extrapolation settings).

Copy method

• Keyframes - only existing keyframes between the start and end frames are copied.

• Segment - if there are no keyframes at either the start or end frames, the clipboard gets copies of all the keyframes between the start and end frames, as well as newly created keyframes at the start and end frames.

Frame range

• Prompt - the system prompts you to type the start and end frames to be copied.

• Option window - the start and end frames to be copied are read from the current values set in the option window.

• Current - the system copies keyframes at the current frame.

Start frame/End frame

These values define the frame range from which to copy the keyframes if Option Window is selected in the Frame Range option.