Animation

Making a document animated#

Open the Timeline (View ▸ Timeline, Ctrl+Shift+T) and click Create Timeline. A new timeline has 24 frames at 12 frames a second, looping. Change the length and speed in the fields at the top.

File ▸ Import Image Sequence... makes an animation from a folder of images.

Playing#

• Space plays and pauses. The ← and → arrow keys step a frame.
• Stop goes back to where playing started; click it twice to go to the first frame.
• The loop button turns looping on and off.
• Drag along the numbers at the top to scrub.

Drawing frame by frame#

A Sprite track holds a layer's drawings. Each drawing lasts until the next one, and the bar after a key shows how long.

• Set Keyframe (Shift+S) starts a new drawing on the current frame, as a copy of the one before, to change.
• With Auto-Key on (the red button), drawing on a frame that has no drawing of its own starts one for you: a copy, or a blank one with Auto-Key Starts New Drawings Empty on in the ≡ menu.

Onion skin shows the frames before (blue) and after (green) faintly, to draw between them. Its button is on the right of the toolbar, and the ≡ menu sets how many frames and how strongly.

Keyframing#

Anything that has a value can change over time: a layer's position, rotation, scale, opacity and visibility, and effect settings.

• Add a track with +: Transform, Opacity or Visibility, or, for 3D layers, 3D Transform and 3D Camera.
• Move to a frame, change the value, and set a key with the diamond. With Auto-Key on, every change sets a key.
• An effect setting has a diamond beside it in the Effects panel: click it to animate that setting.

In the dope sheet, click keys to select them (Shift adds), drag to move them, and right-click for their interpolation: Constant, Linear, Bezier, or an ease. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V copy keys to the current frame.

The graph editor#

The button beside ≡ switches to the graph editor, which draws a track's values as curves. Drag keys up and down to change values, and drag a Bezier key's handles to shape the motion. Alt+drag breaks a handle from its other side. F frames the curves.

To export an animation, see Exporting.