Original subtitles

hello and welcome to this tutorial of Keystone 2

in this video

I'm going to teach you how to get the most out of it

and make it the ideal companion for your

keyframes and layers and after effects

if you're already a Keystone user

you can see that the interface is very

similar to the previous version

but there's one big new feature

this layers menu with new functions dedicated to layers

you can return to the keyframe functionalities by

clicking on keys

and if you have a large enough screen

you can also expand the interface

to display all the functionalities at once

further reducing the number of clicks required to use

Keystone to

and now without further ado

let's start with the keyframes functions

the first part allows you to color

keyframes in one click

and I specify that

this functionality is only available

from aftereffects

2022 and above

to color keyframes

simply select them and click on the color of your

choice for example

I can decide to color

all the intro keyframes with the same color

and the Altro ones with another

you can also easily reselect keyframes by

control clicking on the color of your choice

which is very useful

when you have a lot of

keyframes spread over multiple layers

you can also add

keyframes of another color to the selection by shift

clicking and remove keyframes of a certain color

by alt clicking

you can change the label

colors in the Aftereffects

Preferences menu by going to edit

preferences and labels

if you're paying attention

you may notice that

some of these colors are not present

in the Keystone to interface

indeed in the preferences menu of Keystone 2

you can decide

which colors to display in the interface

I personally decided to

hide the darkest colors as I find

they are not suitable for use with keyframes

because there's not

enough contrast with the timeline background color

next is the align section

which lets you align keyframes to the CTI

or to the boundaries of your layers

I select some keyframes

click on the first icon

and my keyframes are automatically aligned to the CTI

you can see that the

keyframes have retained their offset within the layer

this is because by default in Keystone

a single click activates the layer mode

if I select

keyframes for multiple layers and click on align

you can see that the keyframes are grouped by layer

if you wish to align all

keyframes of all properties on the CTI

you need to activate the property mode with the Alt

click shortcut

this time all the first keyframes of all

properties are aligned to the CTI

there is also the global mode

which allows you to maintain the

offset of all selected

keyframes regardless of their layer

for example I select all these keyframes and shift

click to activate the global mode

which aligns the entire block of keyframes to the CTI

these modes activated by hotkeys

are very important

as they apply to a large

part of Keystone's functionalities

to continue with the alignment functions

the second option is almost identical

but this time the alignment is performed on the last

keyframe in the group

and finally the last two options allow you to align

keyframes to the in point

or out point of their respective layer

the next part allows you to stagger

keyframes from one another

for these functions

I need to specify a value and choose a time unit

between frames and seconds

for this example I choose 5 frames

select these keyframes then click on the first icon

it creates a descending offset and as before

by default Keystone has grouped the keyframes by layer

if I wish to stagger the keyframes by property

I press Alt and click

on the other hand

this button creates a sending staggers

and this one creates a different random stagger

every time we click on it

for each of these three functions

the stagger starts at the first keyframe in the group

so there's no need to use the CTI

in the next section you can stretch groups of keyframes

this has the effect of

slowing down or speeding up the animations concerned

as with a stagger functions

there is a field for specifying a value

as well as 3 units

percent frames or seconds

100 percent corresponds to the current state of the

keyframe group

and nothing happens if I click on the icons

if I set this to 200 percent

it doubles the duration of the keyframe

group in the timeline and slows down the animation

if I want to speed up the animation

I indicate a value lower than 100 percent

for example a value of 50 percent

will have the length of the animation

I can use the global mode by using the shift

click shortcut

which stretches all the selected

keyframes as a single block

if I want to affect each property individually

I use Alt click

you can also specify a fixed value with the units

frames and seconds

for example I want this group of keyframes to last

precisely 2 seconds

so I write to

change the unit and click on the first button

if I enable property mode with Alt click

each of the keyframe

groups selected on the properties are now 2

seconds long

the second button stretches from the last keyframe

this is very useful for Outrow animations

and for the last button

stretch is applied from the CTI

the last feature is a little different

as it allows keyframes to be distributed evenly

for this example

I want to have 20 frames between each of my keyframes

so I change the value

select my keyframes and click on the icon

I now have exactly 20 frames between each keyframe

the shift section is very simple

and allows you to shift selected keyframes by

1 or 10 frames

double arrows shift 10

frames left or right in the timeline

while single arrows shift

keyframes one frame at a time for maximum precision

you can of course

shift keyframes natively in aftereffects

but the great thing

about keystones shift functionality

is that it doesn't destroy your motion

curves like aftereffects does

if you don't know what I'm talking about

I'll show you right now

I activate the graph editor

and move this keyframe with my mouse

it completely destroys the carefully

crafted tangents of this animation

in contrast if I use Keystone 2's functions

you can see immediately that it

perfectly preserves the motion curve of the keyframes

it's important to note that this

curve in Tangent Preservation works with all Keystone

2 features for example you can align this keyframe here

or stretch these other keyframes

and in either case

the overall shape of the motion

curve is well preserved

if you're a user of the first version of Keystone

you probably have noticed these three icons

which are one of the big new features of Keystone 2

these options allow you to link or unlink

keyframes and layers

by default when the first option is activated

keyframes are not linked to layers

meaning that layers don't move when

keyframes are manipulated

if I align these keyframes with Keystone

the layers don't move

this is after affects native behavior

if I decide to move these same keyframes with my mouse

however

this behavior is problematic in certain situations

here I've already

created several animations on different pre comps

and I want to stagger the intro

keyframes of each of these

pre comp

this works very well

but I would have liked the layers to follow the

keyframes and here

the layers have remained aligned with the first

frame of the composition

once you're in this configuration

there's unfortunately no easy way of doing this

natively and after effects

so you have to manually shift the layers one by one

and then reshift the keyframes precisely

if you have a lot of layers

this process can take several minutes

I'm going to avoid this by cancelling the stagger

and clicking on the second icon

it means that the selected

keyframes are linked to the layers and points

I click on the stagger function again

and this time the layers and

points are linked to the selected keyframes

if I cancel and start again

you can also

see that this does not affect the unselected keyframes

which retain their original position in the timeline

the third option

links the outpoint of the layers with the selected

keyframes

I decide to align these keyframes with the CTI

and this correctly moves the layer out point

as you can see

these options are very powerful

and it's a huge timesaver

not to have to manually adjust the layers in point

or out point

and it's compatible with all these features

next are the duplicate and flip options

simply select a group of

keyframes and click on duplicate

duplication is performed at

CTI level on the first keyframe in the group

the second

option lets you duplicate and flip at the same time

this is ideal for quickly creating outrow animations

the third option flips keyframes

by default a single click

activates the layer mode and preserves the offset of

keyframes belonging to the same layers

if I want to reverse the

keyframes of each property individually

I need to use the property mode with the Alt

click shortcut

now I select keyframes on several layers and

click on the icon

with a single click and the layer mode

we get this result

we can also invert the entire block of

keyframes with the global mode with shift click

the next section allows you to copy and paste

keyframes from one layer to other layers

with options not available in after effects

in this example

I have several layers slightly offset from each other

they have the same animation and the same keyframes

I want to continue this animation

and I'm going to create two other keyframes randomly

by default and after effects

to duplicate this animation on the other layers

I have no choice but to copy and paste these keyframes

but then they end up aligned on the CTI

and I have to move them manually

which is a real pain when you have a lot of layers

I undo this

and with Keystone 2 I simply copy these keyframes

make sure in point is selected

then select the other layers

and click on paste

the

keyframes are automatically placed in the right place

on their respective layers

which makes things a lot

easier and saves a lot of time

in situations

where you wish to update animations

that are not aligned with the layer edges

you can use the key selection option

for example I can offset these keyframes

change their color

I copy the entire animation with Keystone

and then after selecting the key selection

option and the other keyframes

I paste them with Keystone

this is a very effective method when the

keyframes are neither aligned with the

edges of the layer

nor with each other

finally there's the relative paste option

up to now I've used the Absolute Paste option

which means that pasted

keyframes have exactly the same values as copied

keyframes if I use the Absolute Paste

option on position properties

all layers end up in exactly the same place

this is perfectly normal because the

keyframes have the same values

but it's not usually what you want

in this kind of situation

now if I use relative pasting on the last layers

you can see that this transfers the layer movement

while preserving the original position of the selected

layers

now let's take a closer look at the last

three features of the keys panel

by manipulating keyframes

especially with stretch functions

keyframes can end up between two frames

instead of being correctly aligned

this feature allows you to correct this

in just one click

if I zoom into the timeline

you can see that these keyframes are

between two frames

so all I have to do is select the

keyframes and

click this button

to have them automatically aligned

with the nearest frame

the next button is used to define a constant speed

between two keyframes

for example in this scene

I'd like to soften the curve

between the two keyframes in the middle

you can try to align the tangents manually

but it's time consuming and very approximate

on top of that

you have to start all over

again when you move the keyframes in the timeline

Keystone 2 solves this problem extremely easily

because all I have to do is select the two keyframes

click on the icon and that's it

the best part is that once I've used this feature

Keystone

2 will maintain this constant speed between these two

keyframes if I use another feature of the extension

for example

if I decide to align the last two keyframes on the CTI

the alignment is maintained

this may seem perfectly normal to you

but it's not after effects default behavior at all

if I move these keyframes manually

you can see that this destroys the constant speed

I reuse the option to obtain a constant speed

and this time

I move the keyframes using Keystone shifting options

whatever the direction

the constant speed is perfectly preserved

a real time saver and far more

efficient than after affects native behavior

the last feature in this section

allows you to automatically delete

keyframes located between

other selected keyframes

this can happen

for example when you stretch a group of keyframes

in this scene

if I stretch these keyframes to 200 percent

I end up with overlapping

keyframes that I want to delete

just click on this icon and the work is done

now that we've seen all the keyframe features

let's move on to the layers panel

Keystone 2's biggest new feature

the interface is very similar to the keys panel

with icons that are

easy to read and directly accessible with one click

as in the keys panel

color labels can be applied to layers using Keystone

simply select the layers and click on one of the color

squares

let's move on to the alignment functions

you can align the layers in point on the CTI

the layers out point on the CTI

you can also align the layers to the earliest in point

of the selection

and to the latest out point

in the same way as for the keys panel functions

there are several modes for certain functions

by default the layer mode is activated

if I click on this icon

all layers are aligned with the CTI

but you can also

activate the global mode with shift

clicking to treat all layers as a single block

as you can see this preserves the offset between layers

the next section allows you to apply an offset

between layers

you enter a value and choose a unit between frames

seconds and minutes

then decide whether you want a descending

a sending or a random stagger

this last icon allows you to keep the

existing staggering

for example

I've just randomly staggered the layers by 2 frames

but I'd like to increase it to 4 frames

if I click on this button again

it will apply a new random stagger when I simply

wanted to increase the

existing stagger

so I cancel this action

and click on this last icon instead

as you can see

Keystone has automatically determined the layer order

and is applying the new stagger correctly

there may also be situations where

some layers are aligned

for example if I duplicate this layer

I increase the stagger to 6 frames and

click again on this last icon

you can see that

Keystone has correctly preserved this alignment

between these layers

while modifying the stagger

between all the other layers

below this is the stretch section

which allows you to

act on the properties of the same name in the timeline

if these properties do not appear

simply right click on this bar

go to columns then click on stretch

stretch can be applied from the layer in point

the layer out point or the CTI

the default unit is percent

but you can also specify a number of frames

seconds or minutes

in this scene for example

each layer has a different duration

if I want each layer to last 5 seconds

Keystone

2 automatically calculates the percentage to apply

to each layer

now let's take a closer look at the three

options that affect

all these functions

by default and after effects when you move layers

the keyframes are linked and move along with the layer

thanks to Keystone 2

you can now dissociate layers from their keyframes

for example in this scene

I want to align these layers while

preserving the position of the

keyframes in the timeline

simply activate this option and click on a line

this second option links only selected

keyframes to their respective layers

here I want to shift the layers

while retaining the intro animations

I select the appropriate keyframes

click on the

option to link the layers with the selected

keyframes and shift the layers

as you can see

the unselected keyframes remain in place

while the selected layers and

keyframes have been moved

and finally trim options based on keyframes

I select these layers

click on the last icon

and the layer

length is automatically adjusted

in relation to the first

and last keyframes

for these functions

you can choose between start time and end point

which are very important options for precomps

here if I select in point and trim these pre comp

we can see that it simply cuts the layer at the first

keyframe

now if I select Start Time with these other pre comps

it moves the layers entirely

without affecting the keyframes

this brings us to the end of the tutorial

thanks for sticking around until the end

and don't hesitate to leave a message if you have any

questions or suggestions for new features