Timeline Tools in Depth

1Four ways to see your motion

The timeline offers four view tabs, each showing the same animation through a different lens: Frames, Channels, Sequencer, and Motion Graph. You will not use all four for every shot, but knowing which one answers which question saves enormous time. Frames is your everyday home; the others are specialist tools you reach for when a specific problem shows up. Click between the tabs freely, because switching view never changes your animation, only how you look at it.

2Frames view: your everyday home

The Frames view is the classic dope-sheet: a grid of frames with your keyframes laid out as dots you can grab, slide, and delete. This is where you do most of your timing work, dragging a key later to slow a move or earlier to snap it. It shows every layer's keys stacked so you can see how the whole scene lines up at a glance. If you only ever learned one view, this would be it.

3Channels view: one property at a time

The Channels view breaks a layer or bone down into its separate animated properties, so you can see the keys for position apart from the keys for angle apart from scale. This is a lifesaver when a move looks wrong but you cannot tell which property is misbehaving. Isolate the channel, inspect its keys, and fix just that one without disturbing the others.

4Sequencer view: arrange the big blocks

The Sequencer view zooms out to treat chunks of animation as blocks you can slide around in time, so you are arranging sections rather than individual keys. It is the right view for structuring a longer piece, nudging an entire action to start later, or reordering beats. Where Frames is about the precise placement of each key, Sequencer is about the shape of the whole timeline. Use it when you are editing the story of the shot, not its details.

5Motion Graph view: shape the curves

The Motion Graph view plots a property's value as a curve over time, and the slope of that curve is the speed of the motion. A steep line is fast; a flat line is a hold; a gentle S is a smooth ease. This is where you sculpt the feel of a move by dragging its curve, and where you set interpolation precisely. Right-click a point here to open Interpolation and choose how the studio travels between two keys.

6Transport: play, stop, and find your place

The transport row runs playback. Play and Stop do the obvious, while the Frame readout shows your current frame out of the total so you always know where you are. Turn on Loop to play a section over and over while you tune it, which is how you will judge almost everything. Get comfortable tapping Play constantly, because animation reads completely differently in motion than it does frozen.

7Jump between keyframes

Scrubbing frame by frame to find your next key is slow, so use Previous keyframe and Next keyframe to leap the playhead straight from one key to the next. This lands you exactly on the frames that matter, which is where you almost always want to edit. It keeps you on the beats of your animation rather than lost in the tween frames between them. Pair it with the property views to hop through just the keys on one channel.

8Stepped playback: On 1s, 2s, and 3s

Traditional animation rarely changes the drawing every single frame; it holds each one for a beat, and that hold has a name. The stepped playback toggle lets you preview On 1s, On 2s, or On 3s, meaning each drawing is held for one, two, or three frames. Animating on 2s (every second frame) is the classic look and instantly gives motion that hand-drawn snap, while on 1s feels smooth and modern. Toggle between them to feel which suits your piece before committing.

9Two-way onion skin

Onion skin shows ghosts of neighbouring frames so you can draw and pose in relation to what came before and after. Click the Onion eye to switch it on: past frames ghost in red, and the forward stepper +N lets you also show future frames, which ghost in green. Seeing both the previous and next poses at once is how you get spacing right, keeping your in-betweens evenly placed. Bump the +N value to peek further ahead when a move spans several frames.

10Markers: label your beats

Markers pin named moments on the timeline so you never lose your beats. Move the playhead to a key moment and add a marker (the dialog reads Marker at frame with an Add marker button), then use Jump to previous marker and Jump to next marker to leap between them. Use markers for the musical hits, the lines of dialogue, or the story beats you are animating to. When a marker is no longer useful, Delete marker clears it.

11Insert frames to make room

Sometimes a move needs more breathing room than you left it. Insert frames pushes everything after the playhead later in time, opening a gap you can fill. The dialog asks how many (Frames to insert) and its Insert button does the shift, so a move that felt rushed suddenly has space to ease. This shifts every downstream key together, keeping their relative timing intact while giving the earlier section room. It is the clean way to stretch a section without hand-dragging dozens of keys.

12Interpolation: how a move travels

Between any two keys the studio has to decide how to travel, and that choice is the interpolation mode. Set it by right-clicking in the Motion Graph and choosing Interpolation, or from the inspector's Interp dropdown. The staples are Linear (constant, mechanical speed), Smooth (gentle ease at both ends), and Step (hold) (no motion at all, then a sudden jump). Getting these right is the difference between motion that feels designed and motion that feels like a spreadsheet.

13The eases, and the fun ones

Beyond the staples sits a whole menu of feel. Ease in, Ease out, and Ease in/out control where a move accelerates and decelerates, which is most of what makes motion look weighty. Then the characterful ones: Cycle repeats a motion for loops, Noise adds a jitter for shakes and static, and Bounce makes a value overshoot and settle like a dropped ball. Try Bounce on a landing or a stretchy squash-and-stretch and it does the springy secondary motion for you, no extra keys required.

14Fine-tune with curve handles

When a preset ease is close but not quite right, take manual control. In the Motion Graph, Add curve handles gives a key adjustable handles you can drag to shape the exact acceleration, letting you craft a bespoke ease no preset offers. If you overcook it, Reset curve handles returns the key to its default. This is the finishing polish, the last few percent that separates a good move from a great one. Reserve it for the hero moments; not every key needs hand-sculpted timing.

15What good timing looks like

Good timing has variety: fast bits and slow bits, snaps and holds, not one uniform speed throughout. Play your piece on Loop and ask whether the accents land where the story wants them (that is what your markers are for). If everything feels floaty, add some Step (hold) and sharper eases; if it feels robotic, spread your keys and switch Linear to Smooth. The best test is simple: does it feel like something with weight and intent, or like values marching in a line?

Quick questions