Playbar

Overview

The playbar controls the current time displayed in the viewer, playback of animation and simulation, and the playback range. The playbar also displays keys on the scoped channels, and you can edit keys directly on the timeline.

Playback

The VCR-like transport controls on the left side of the playbar control the current frame and playback.

Transport controls

Button	Key	Function
	Ctrl +	Go to first frame
	Ctrl +	Go to previous keyframe
		Play in reverse
	Stop
		Play forward
	Ctrl +	Go to next keyframe
		Previous frame
		Next frame

Playback options

To...	Do this
Loop playback	Click and choose Play Once, Loop, or ZigZag (ping-pongs back and forth between the start and end frames).
Skip frames to maintain realtime playback	Click . Click to open the Global Animation Options window and select the appropriate Realtime Playback option.
Limit playback speed to the global FPS setting	Click to turn on real-time playback. Click to open the Global Animation Options window and select the appropriate Realtime Playback option.

Timeline

The timeline is a graphical representation of the current frame range. The current frame is highlighted with a black box. Keys on the scoped channels appear as marks on the timeline. You can edit keyframes directly on the timeline using the ⇧ Shift key.

See how key marks are color coded on the timeline.

Setting the current time

Click or drag in the timeline to set the current frame.
Type an exact frame number in the current frame field.
Use the + and - buttons next to the current frame field to increase or decrease the current frame.
Click ⇧ Shift + in the timeline to flip between the last two frames viewed.

Setting the frame range

There are two frame ranges: the overall frame range is set in the Global Animation Options. Within this range, you can use controls on the timeline to it to show and playback a subset of the total frame range. This lets you concentrate on subsections of the total animation.

To...	Do this
Set the total number of frames	Click to open the Global Animation Options window. Change the End option and click Apply.

Editing keys on the timeline

You can edit scoped keys directly on the timeline without opening the channel editor when it’s more convenient. Editing keys on the timeline is very similar to editing in the dopesheet.

Note

The timeline only shows key markers for the currently scoped channels.

Hold ⇧ Shift and click or drag to edit keyframes in the timeline. Holding ⇧ Shift puts you in “editing” mode instead of moving the playhead along the timeline. You can lock the timeline into editing mode using the Enable Key Editing button at the right end of the playbar.

⇧ Shift +	Drag on the timeline to select a range. Drag the selection to move it. Drag the solid squares at either end to resize the selection.
	Drag a range to move the selected keys. Drag the solid squares at either end of the selection to scale the selected keys.
⇧ Shift +	Clear the timeline selection.
	Right-click the timeline to access a menu of commands for editing the selected keys. For example, you can delete keys on the timeline by selecting them, right-clicking and choosing Delete keys.

Hold scoped channels

This is a quick way to copy the values of the scoped channels from one frame to another, such as when you want an object to ping-pong back and forth between two positions.

Go to the frame you want to copy the values from.
Middle-drag the current frame marker to the frame you want to copy to. The values of the scoped channel appear not to change as you drag, but you will see an orange triangle and an orange key.
Press K to key the held values at the current frame, or click another frame on the timeline to cancel the hold.

Copy and paste keys

Use ⇧ Shift + to select a range of keys, then right-click and choose Cut or Copy.
Use ⇧ Shift + to select the range of frames you want to paste into.

Right-click in the timeline and choose one of the following...

Paste	Copies keys from the clipboard into the current selection.
Replace	Replaces the current selection with the contents of the clipboard.
Stretch/Paste	Stretches the contents of the clipboard to fill the selection, if the new selection is a different size than when you cut/copied.
Paste as cycle	Repeats the contents of the clipboard to fill the selection, if the new selection is longer than when you cut/copied.
Paste as cycle with offset	Repeats the contents of the clipboard with offsets to fill the selection, if the new selection is longer than when you cut/copied.

Visual paste

The visual paste options on the context menu let you interactively position the paste location with the mouse, instead of selecting it first and then pasting.

First, cut or copy a set of keys.
If you want to visually paste a repeat or cycle, select a longer range of frames than you have keys – the range will be filled with repeats/cycles when you paste.