The Curve Editor

The Curve Editor allows you to create, see, and modify animation curves or Lookup curves. You can change the curve type, as well as its cycling mode. For more information on specific curve types, jump to About Splines.

There are two curve editors – the first for the animation of values, and the second for lookup-style curves that generally relate to color correction. This second type is generally inside of the parameter tab itself (see the ColorCorrect node for example), and is a sub-set of the animation curve editor.

Loading and Viewing Curves into the Editor

There are two basic ways of loading curves:




In the list of loaded parameters are two columns for toggling visibility and persistence.



 

Adding and Modifying Keyframes

Add and insert keyframes in several ways:

 

When moving keys, you can lock off movement by using the axis lock buttons:

There are also two helpful toggles on the Right mouse menu:

 

You can select keyframes in several ways:

 

 

Therefore, the Key box is the time you want the keyframe to be at, and Value is of course the value. Clever, that part, eh? If you set the tangents to 0, it flattens the keyframe out on a Hermite curve. By the way, the text fields in the actual Curve List (the ones to the right of the curve name) are absolutely useless and are there just to frustrate you.

 


Modifying Curves

You can modify a curve type, its repetition mode, as well as apply filter effects (smooth, jitter extraction, etc.) on a curve.

To change a curve type

 

The Key and Val columns are next to useless as you can't modify a value there. Useless as much as when I mentioned it a minute ago.

The Cycle type determines what happens before the first keyframe and after the last key. You can keep the value (default), continue the tangent, repeat the curve, invert the curve, or repeat offset the curve. For graphs of these types, jump to About Splines.

For a tutorial on using local variables and expressions to control your curves, jump to the Fan Tutorial.

 

You can apply functions to curves or keyframes with the function buttons:

 

The first pop-up controls the function type. If appropriate (smooth and jitter), you modify the amount as well. The next two buttons apply the effect, and designate if the effect is on the entire curve or on selected keys. The final pop-up can apply the effect to selected curves, or you can select a specific curve in the list.

Starting with a curve that looks like this, you can get several results using filters:

 











Deleting Keys

You can delete keyframes either by:

Deleting Curves

Delete entire curves in several ways:



Navigating the Curve Editor

There are several functions to help you use the Curve Editor window.

Right Mouse Menus

Function
Effect
Hot Key
Add All Curves Adds all animated curves into the editor.
Remove Curves Removes selected curves from the Curve Editor. Does not delete the animation.
Backspace
Visibility: Hide Curves Turns off visibility of selected curves. You can also press the visibility button on the Curve List.
Visibility: Show Curves Shows selected curves. You are selecting curves in the Curve List before doing this function.
Visibility: Toggle Visibility Inverts the visibility of all selected curves.
Select: All Curves Selects all curves in the Curve List.
Ctrl+A
Select: CVs Selects all CVs on active curves. Therefore, to select all CVs on all loaded curves, press Ctrl+A and then Shift+A.
Shift+A
Display Timecode Toggles the time display from frames to time code.
T
Sticky Time When this is on, the current frame is set to whatever keyframe you are modifying.
S
Time Snap When this is on, keyframes snaps to frames, rather than float values.
Display Selected Info Displays data on selected curves and keyframes when active.