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The DopeSheet is a window that provides a clear overview of all animation and relation tracks for selected objects and named selections in an animated scene. You can use the DopeSheet to modify your sequences by editing keyframes with standard editing operations such as moving, copying, cutting, and pasting. In addition, certain relations, such as constraints, can easily be deactivated temporarily.
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The standard methods for moving around in any window, such as Zoom, Rect Zoom, Frame All, and Reset (all commands found in the Camera menu cell), and the Preferences->Zoom on Cursor command, can also be applied to the DopeSheet window. In addition, there are two other zoom operations especially for the DopeSheet window:
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The DopeSheet window displays a series of animation and relation tracks. A track consists of a series of narrow rectangular boxes, each representing one frame. User-defined keyframes are coloured blue and linked keyframes are coloured light green. The green box to the right of the track name indicates that a track is active. If the box is red, it means that the track is inactive. A dotted green box means that some tracks beneath are active, while others are not.
An object such as a camera, model, or light, or a named selection must be selected before its corresponding tracks can be displayed in the DopeSheet window. If an object is selected, a track for that object is displayed.
If a named selection is selected, one track for that named selection is displayed, allowing you to perform operations on many objects at the same time. For example, you could create a named selection for the objects (see Select->Set Named Selection) and then select it. A track appears for it in the DopeSheet which lets you move and scale all the corresponding keys in one operation. This is also a convenient way to create groups of objects you want to edit together.
If no objects or named selections in a scene have been selected, one animation track for the entire scene is displayed.
When you open the DopeSheet window, the initial track displayed for each selected object or named selection is an Object Track. An Object Track represents all animation and relation tracks for that object. The name of the object, such as "Obj1," is positioned just above the track on the left side of the window. A letter "B" beside an object name means the object is branch-selected.
Clicking the name opens an Info dialogue box, which can be edited.
The initially displayed Object Track can be "expanded" to access various levels of related groups of tracks beneath.
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The DopeSheet window title bar contains nine options: ACTIV, DEACT, COPY, CUT, PASTE, CLEAR, SETUP, LINK, and UNLINK.
This section describes the title bar options that are specific to the DopeSheet window, but for other standard title bar options available, see Window Title Bar Options.
The ACTIV option is used to activate a segment of a track. To activate a segment of a track, select a segment, and then click ACTIV in the window title bar.
The DEACT option is used to deactivate a selected segment of a track so that it is not updated during playback. This is especially useful if you have multiple constraints on one object and would like to deactivate some of those constraints for part of your animation.
To deactivate a selected segment of a track, select it, and then click DEACT in the window title bar.
The deactivated segment is dimmed.
The COPY option is used with the PASTE option. It copies a selected segment of a track to a paste buffer, allowing you to reinsert it in another area of a track. You can paste a segment into another selected segment that is a different size. The pasted segment is then scaled up or down to fit into the new segment.
The segment is copied from the paste buffer and reinserted into a track. When only the point of insertion is indicated, the frames to the right of the inserted segment move further to the right (forward in time) to accommodate that segment. When a segment has been selected, the original segment is scaled up or down to fit in it and replaces the original contents of the editing box.
The CUT option is used to delete segments from the animation completely or, with the PASTE option, to remove a segment from one area and paste it to another. You can paste a segment into another selected segment that is a different size from the original segment. The pasted segment is scaled up or down to fit into the new segment and replaces the original contents of the editing box.
Once a segment is cut from the track, the remaining frames to the right move left, or back in time, to take that segment's place.
To cut a segment, select the segment, and click CUT in the window title bar.
To paste it in another area, the segment is copied from the paste buffer and reinserted into a track. When only the point of insertion is indicated, the frames to the right of the pasted segment move further to the right (forward in time) to accommodate that segment. When a segment has been selected, the pasted segment is scaled up or down to fit it, and replaces the original contents of the editing box.
The PASTE option is used with the CUT and COPY options. It copies a segment from the paste buffer and inserts it into a selected area of a track, replacing the original contents of the editing box.
Tip:
Because the segment is copied from the Paste Buffer, you can paste the same segment as many times as desired by continuing to specify insertion points and clicking PASTE.
Although you can copy/cut and paste segments from a lower level track to a higher level track (such as from the animation parameters level to the animation track level (scaly to Scale)), the CUT/PASTE and COPY/PASTE options have certain limitations:
You can copy/cut and paste segments from one object's track to another's only if the track level is the same or higher, and the animation attribute or relation are the same. For example, you can copy/cut and paste from one object's animation track corresponding to another object (Rotation to Rotation), or from one object's attribute parameter track to another object's animation track (roty of the first object to Rotation of the second object).
An exception to this occurs at the lowest level tracks (attribution parameters and target relations level). At this level, you can copy from one attribute parameter type to another. For example, you can copy one object's scaly to another object's rotx.
The CLEAR option deletes selected keyframes and the white editing box from an animation track. (You can delete just the white editing box segment by right-clicking any animation track.)
Unlike the CUT and COPY options, the CLEAR option does not copy keyframes to the paste buffer, and the frames to the right of the cleared keyframes do not move to replace them.
Note:
The menu cell operations previously described are performed on branches when you are in Branch mode; if you are in Multi-node mode, the operations affect only the node.
Operations performed by the options LINK, UNLINK, COPY, CUT, PASTE, and CLEAR, as well as the scaling and moving of segments, can be reversed using the History->Undo or Redo commands.
When scaling a sequence with the DopeSheet, you can set the option to either have key points snapped to the nearest frame boundary, or to just let them fall where they may.
This option is saved with the scene.
The LINK option is visible only in the landscape (horizontal half-view) or full screen view. It allows you to link selected keyframes of the same type of relation (such as Rotation with Rotation, Scaling with Scaling, etc.) of a branch object in a hierarchy. Then when the linked keyframes of one node from that branch are edited, the other branch's linked keyframes are also edited. You must be in branch selection mode to use the LINK option, but you can see the effect of that link when you edit any node of that branch which has linked keyframes.
Note:
All objects must be in a hierarchy, and the linked keyframes must be on the same frame.
if you are working in Branch mode, the selected keyframes (and the other keyframes that are linked to them) turn light green.
The UNLINK option unlinks keyframes. Like the LINK option, it is visible only in the full screen or landscape windows.
Note:
If you are working in Branch mode, the selected keyframes (and the other keyframes that were linked to them) return to a blue colour. If you are working in Multi-node mode, only the selected keyframe returns to blue.
Last updated 03-apr-1998