Animation and puppets

Animate titles, photos, drawn characters and rigged 3D figures. Most of the controls are on the Animation tab of the Inspector when a clip is selected.

Keyframes

Every number in the Inspector that can change over time has a diamond beside it.

1. Move the playhead to where the change starts.
2. Click the diamond next to the property (its tooltip reads Add keyframe). The diamond fills in.
3. Move the playhead and change the value. Once a property has keyframes, every change you make, in the Inspector or by dragging on the canvas, adds a key at the playhead.

Click a filled diamond to remove the key at the playhead.

Keys show as marks on the clip in the timeline. Their shape tells you how each one eases into the next: a diamond is eased, a diamond with a dot is a springy curve (elastic, bounce and the like), a square holds, a circle is smooth and a triangle is linear.

• Click a mark to move the playhead to it.
• Drag a mark to retime every key at that moment. It snaps to whole frames.
• Right-click a mark to choose how it eases Into the next key: Ease in and out, Ease in, Ease out, Linear, Smooth, Overshoot, Anticipate, Snap, Whip, Elastic, Spring, Bounce, Back, Expo, Steps or Hold. Delete keyframe is at the bottom of the same menu.

The graph editor

For finer control, press ⇧ G (or click the graph button on the timeline toolbar) to see the selected clip's animation as curves. Drag a key to change its time and value, drag the handles of an eased key to shape the curve, double-click a curve to add a key and press Delete or Backspace to remove the selected one. Click a property's name to show or hide its curve. Normalise scales every curve to the same height so you can compare values in different units. Press ⇧ G again to go back to the clips.

A smooth move has one rise and fall of speed and no sudden kinks. A kink at a key reads as a hitch: ease through it or move the key.

Motion presets

Ready-made entrances, exits and loops are in the Motions panel of the Library, grouped as In and out and Loop. Hover over one to preview it, then click it to apply it to the selected clips, or drag it onto a clip.

To change or remove an entrance, select the clip and use the Motion section on the Animation tab: pick an Entry (or None) and set its Duration.

As a guide, entrances read well at 0.3 to 0.6 seconds and exits at 0.25 to 0.4 seconds.

Motion that keeps going

Curve modifiers

The Curve modifiers section adds behaviour on top of a property's keys, without keying every frame. Choose the Property, then pick from Add modifier…:

For loops, key one clean cycle first. Use Offset for things that keep going (a spin, a scroll), Mirror for things that swing back (a pendulum, breathing) and Repeat for things that reset (a pulse). Keep noise small and slow for gentle life (a few degrees, a few pixels, under two per second); fast noise reads as shaking.

Drivers

A driver makes one property follow another clip's property, live: wheels that turn as a car moves, or a shadow that follows a ball.

1. Select the clip that should follow and open the Drivers section.
2. In Drive, choose the property to control.
3. In From, pick the clip to follow, and in Its, the property to follow.
4. Set Multiply and Delay if you need them, then click Link.

Each driver shows its formula, which you can edit, a switch to turn it off and a button to remove it. A driver takes over the property's keys.

Puppet pins

Puppet pins bend a picture, a video, a title or a shape like a sheet of rubber. The bend follows only what the layer draws, so an arm can move without dragging the body beside it.

1. Select the layer and find the Pins section on the first tab of the Inspector.
2. Choose Puppet as the tool, then choose a pin kind:
   • Position holds its point where you drag it. Two or more pins bend the layer; one alone moves the whole layer.
   • Bend turns and scales the area round it (Rotation, Scale).
   • Starch stiffens an area so it bends less (Amount, Extent).
   • Overlap decides which part is in front where folds cross (In front, Extent).
3. Click the layer to place a pin and drag a pin to move it. ⌥-click a pin on Mac (Alt-click on Windows and Linux) to remove it.

Once a pin is animated, each drag adds a key at the playhead. Mesh sets how fine the bending grid is, and the Puppet switch turns the effect off without losing the pins. The same section has Corners, for corner-pinning a layer onto a screen or a sign, and, when the layer has a mask, Mask, for pinning the mask's outline.

Scissor cuts

A puppet or a skeleton bends one connected picture, so parts that touch drag each other: a stepping leg stretches the other leg. A scissor cut splits the picture along a line so the two sides can move apart, while at rest it still looks whole.

1. In the Pins section, choose Scissor.
2. Drag across the layer to draw a cut. Hold ⇧ for a straight line.
3. Choose what shows in the gap when the sides part: No fill, Mouth (a mouth's dark inside) or Auto (the picture's own colour, darkened).

Drag a dot to move one point of a cut, or the diamond on a segment to move the whole cut. ⌥-click (Alt-click) a dot or diamond to remove it. Find gaps and Find mouth draw the usual cuts for you, and Show mesh draws the bending grid so you can see where it splits.

Cut between the legs from the crotch down, under each arm, round a tail (leave its root joined) and along the lips (stop short of the corners). A cut that runs across a joint detaches the limb, so end cuts where parts join.

Bones for 2D characters

Bones keep limbs their length and bend joints the right way, so a character that walks or performs is easier to animate with a skeleton than with loose pins. The Skeleton section is on the Animation tab of a picture clip.

1. Choose the Body: biped, quadruped, bird, fish, snake, plant or object.
2. Choose which way it is Facing in the picture (or leave Guess).
3. Click Build from silhouette. Bones are drawn on the character's outline. A biped or quadruped also gets cuts between its legs, under its arms and along its mouth.

Then choose a tool:

• Pose: drag a bone's tip to turn it. ⌘-drag (Ctrl-drag on Windows and Linux) a hand or foot to place it and let the limb follow. Drag the white square to move the whole body, or a blue diamond to move a reach target.
• Draw: drag on the layer to draw a bone. Start on a bone's tip to hang the new bone from it.

Below the tools:

• Bones turns the skeleton on or off, and Reach sets how far each bone's pull spreads through the picture.
• Pick a motion (idle, walk, run, sneak, hop, jump, wave, point, talk, nod, look, sad, celebrate, wag, swim or sway) and click Act from playhead to animate it from the playhead to the end of the clip.
• Copy pose, Paste pose, Mirror (swaps front and back limbs) and Rest work at the playhead. Type a name and click Save pose to keep a pose, then click its name to apply it again.
• Split into parts puts the head, torso, arms, legs, tail, eyes and mouth on layers of their own, each following its bone, so the head can turn and mouth shapes can be swapped. Sets of swappable drawings appear as buttons that switch from the playhead.
• Each bone has a Rotation you can key and optional Limits (Lowest, Highest).

Acting, blinks and lip sync

2D characters

Ask the AI editor to give a character life. It rigs the character if needed and bakes the acting in for the seconds you name:

• Under everything: breathe, idle.
• In conversation: talk, listen, nod, shake head, look, think, point, wave.
• Feelings: surprise, laugh, scared, sad, celebrate.
• Animals: peck, wag, swim, hop. Plants: sway. A whole backdrop can sway in a breeze.

Ask for blinks (every four seconds is natural, two nervous, eight calm), for the eyes to look at another character, and for the mouth to follow a voice clip. The mouth opens on the syllables, shapes the words (wide for "ee", round for "oo", shut for m, b and p) and closes in the pauses. A character split into parts can use a drawing for each mouth shape instead.

Each character moves in its own time, so two characters doing the same thing are never in step.

3D characters

Select a rigged model and open the Character section on the Animation tab:

• Walk, Run, Idle, Wave, Jump, Dance and Talk start a motion at the playhead. Stop ends it.
• Smile, Mouth open and Brows up set the face and key it at the playhead.
• Sync mouth to voice lip syncs the character to the sound clip that plays at the same time (one on a lane named "Voice" is preferred). The mouth shapes, jaw and tongue follow the words, with blinks and brow movement added.
• Lip sync intensity makes the mouth move less (mumbling) or more (theatrical), and Lip sync offset moves it earlier or later in milliseconds.
• Check mouth reports a mouth moving in silence, a mouth still while speaking, missed or short closures on m, b and p, and a mouth more than two frames off the voice.

Sync after the line is final: if you trim or retime the voice, sync again.

Squash and stretch

• On a 3D model, Jelly in the Simulation section makes it wobble like jelly or rubber. For control, choose Jelly in Simulation settings on the Model tab and set Stiffness, Squash and Damping, then click Bake.
• On a 2D layer, key a Bend pin's Scale, or use the Overshoot, Back or Elastic easing on a scale key so it overshoots and settles.

Walking: feet that plant and lift

In a good walk each foot stays exactly where it landed until it lifts for the next step, while the body travels over it.

• 3D characters: Walk and Run in the Character section carry the character forward at the pace of its stride. Ask the AI editor to walk a character along a route, up to a point or for a distance, and in a gait (walk, stroll, march, sneak, tiptoe, trudge, limp, jog, run, or trot and gallop for animals). Each foot is planted and left there until it lifts, turns and curved paths included, and the last steps close up side by side.
• 2D characters: Act from playhead with walk or run moves the legs in place. Ask the AI editor to walk the character with automatic travel, which moves the layer at the gait's own pace so the planted foot stays still.
• Standing still: a biped, quadruped or bird built from its silhouette has a reach handle on each foot, listed in the Skeleton section. To keep the feet on the ground while the character leans or gestures, turn on Live IK for each foot and click Pin here. The foot stays put while the body moves. Turn it off before the character walks.

An adult walks about two steps a second; slow it down for someone heavy or old and speed it up for a child.

Related pages

• Characters and looks
• Worlds and physics
• Sound effects and voices
• The AI editor