Original subtitles

In the last module, we went over the Dope Sheet,

keyframes,

and how to manipulate animation data by modifying these keyframes or by

changing the nature of the animation clips themselves.

In this module, I'd like to show you the Curve Editor.

The Curve Editor is available in most software packages and

is common in most animation software.

We use the Curve Editor as a better source of

visual feedback about our animation.

It allows us to modify the animation data without having to

worry too much about technically entering numbers into

properties and key framing by hand.

The Curve Editor is a more fluid,

artistic way of getting a feel for how your animation flows.

Let's get started by taking a look at the different parts of the Curve Editor.

This is the parameter tree.

This is almost exactly the same as it is in the Dope Sheet.

Here we just see a visual list of all of the nodes and

animated properties that those nodes contain.

Now if I go over to the Node Graph,

you'll see that I have a very simple Read Node set

up with a very simple Transform.

This Transform, if I double-click on it,

just has some very simple keyframe animation in the X and

the Y value of its translate property,

and you'll see those keyframes indicated on the timeline as blue ticks.

Now if we go down to the Curve Editor, you'll notice the Y value is highlighted,

but not the X value.

I did his on purpose specifically to show you how only the

selected values get curves in the Curve Editor.

The highlighted value will display the selected curve.

You'll notice that the curve has little dots along it

where the animation changes direction.

These are your keyframes.

You can select them by left-mouse button dragging

or marquee selecting over them, like this.

This is the same way we selected keyframes in the Dope Sheet.

This is the current frame indicator.

This bar, just like the Dope Sheet,

shows us what frame we are currently on in our timeline,

and in our Viewer Panel, and down here we have an expressions field.

The expressions field is a powerful friend for generating procedural animation,

like CameraShakes,

or if you want a value to wobble or you want to generate random noise,

but let's put that to the side for right now and I'll come back

to expressions at the end of this module.

Right now I just want you to know that this is the Curve Editor,

and it has a parameter tree where you can find all of your animated values,

it has a curve representing the animation for those values,

and you can select and view your keyframes on that curve.

You know what frame you're on with this bar,

and we'll go into expressions a little later.

In the next clip,

we'll take a look at different ways to view animation in the Curve Editor,

reframing, zooming in and out,

and hiding and un-hiding different animation curves.