WEBVTT

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Keyframes are the foundation of animation.

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Even if you aren't familiar with animation,

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you've probably still heard of the word frames,

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as in frames per second.

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Frames are basically just still images,

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and the number of frames per second

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is how many still images are shown sequentially

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on screen per second.

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A sequence of frames creates a moving image.

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Keyframes are the most important,

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or key, frames in a moving image.

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And for an animation,

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these are set manually by a human animator.

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The keyframes are typically where the key poses

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of your characters lie.

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In other words, if someone was doing a run cycle,

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the keyframes would be most likely

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at the extreme points of the run cycle,

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as well as some important transitions

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between how the legs move,

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relative to the rest of the body.

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So, what do keyframes do for animation?

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Well, in digital animation,

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if you mark the key poses,

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the software can often interpolate

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or blend the frames in between

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so that you get a smooth movement between keyframes.

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This is also known as tweening,

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and keyframes are the foundation of animation

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because without them,

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the software would not know how to tween,

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or how to move the character.

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I'm going to quickly demonstrate

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how to create and edit keyframes in Blender.

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Now, it's very important to know

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that keyframing works functionally the same

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for objects, bones,

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and you can even keyframe visibility,

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materials, and several other values.

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Before we begin,

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I want you to know that there are three keyframe editors.

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These are the Graph Editor,

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the Dope Sheet,

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and the Timeline.

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All three of these have the ability

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to manipulate keyframes,

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and I will reference them here and there.

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But the Timeline is what we'll be showing

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as the default screen has it

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at the bottom of the Layout workspace.

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However, we'll go in-depth about each of these editors

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in their own separate videos.

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The first thing we'll want to know

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is how to insert keyframes.

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There are several ways to do this,

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but it's simple enough.

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The first way is to simply select something

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and right-click for a context menu,

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or right-click directly on the value,

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and see if it has the Insert Keyframe option.

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If so, that value can be keyframed.

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Let's take this Rotation Mode drop-down, for example.

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As you can see,

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the value will turn yellow,

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meaning there is a keyframe on your current frame

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for that value.

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This will also create a visible keyframe

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in your Dope Sheet and Timeline

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at your current frame,

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marked by these small yellow shapes.

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They should be yellow circles by default,

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but are sometimes squares or diamonds

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depending on your handle type.

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They are also typically diamonds in the Timeline.

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But we'll get more into this

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in the Dope Sheet and Timeline videos.

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For some things,

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such as objects and bones in the 3D viewport,

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you'll also see an additional menu pop up

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when you try to insert keyframes.

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For example, if we select our cube,

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you'll see a list of options that looks like this.

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I typically pick Lock Rot Scale,

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as it'll insert a keyframe

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in all three transformation channels.

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But feel free to experiment

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and choose an option

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that's most appropriate for your situation.

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For hotkey users,

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simply select the object you want to keyframe,

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or hover over the value you want to keyframe,

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and press I as an insert

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to insert a keyframe in the same way.

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Another way to insert keyframes

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is with the Auto Keyframe feature.

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Enabling Auto Keyframe mode

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will actually automatically record

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changes and transformations we make

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to any object in our 3D scene

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and insert keyframes for us.

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It will also record changes in values

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that have been keyframed before.

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To test this out,

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I'm going to select a different object.

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In fact, let's add a monkey to our scene.

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And to set a keyframe for this monkey object

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on our current frame

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with the Auto Keyframe feature,

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we can go to our timeline

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and press this white circle record icon button.

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Now that Auto Keyframe is enabled,

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if we move or transform our monkey

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in some way in the viewport,

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you can see a keyframe

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being automatically generated here

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in our timeline and dope sheet.

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Now, you may notice

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after inserting the first keyframe,

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transforming our object further

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doesn't seem to insert new keyframes.

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But the reality is,

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it is changing the current keyframe.

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It's just replacing it.

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To insert a separate keyframe,

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we'll want to change our current frame first.

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So how do we move our current frame

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to a different position in the timeline?

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The current frame is indicated by this value here,

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which you can edit manually

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like most values in Blender.

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But a few other ways

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is to left-click drag the top of the timeline here

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or hold Alt and use the scroll wheel.

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For fine tuning,

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you can also press the left and right arrow keys.

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Anyways, for this,

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I'm going to just move to frame 20.

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Once we move to a later point in our timeline,

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let's set another keyframe

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by simply transforming our object again.

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I'm going to move it just a bit to the right.

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Now that we have more than one keyframe,

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we can see the automatic interpolation

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or tweening process that the software does for us

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to create animation.

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Let's drag our timeline back to the beginning

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and press the play button.

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For hockey users, you can press spacebar.

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Okay, now you can see our monkey is moving.

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What we're seeing here is the software taking our two keyframes

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and interpolating the transformation

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between the first location and the second location.

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This interpolation can be tweaked in a different direction.

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It can be used in the Dope Sheet or Graph Editor,

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but we'll talk about those in their own separate videos.

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For now, this is our masterpiece.

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But what if you want to delete keyframes?

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How do we do that?

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Well, to delete keyframes,

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you can simply use the timeline or Dope Sheet,

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select the keyframes you want to delete with left-click

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and press the delete key.

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Alternatively, you can also navigate to the frame

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with that keyframe and right-click for a context menu.

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Then select delete keyframe.

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For the quick tip from the same menu,

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you can also click clear keyframes

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to delete all keyframes for that value.

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It's important to note, however,

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that the delete keyframes option is not available

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in the 3D viewport context menu.

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But you can still go to the object menu,

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go to animation and select delete keyframe from that menu.

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For hockey users, you can select the object

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or hover over the value with the keyframe on the current frame

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and press alt I to delete keyframes in the same way.

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One more thing you'll want to know about keyframes

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is the ability to change keyframe type.

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This might sound advanced,

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but in reality, it just means keyframe color.

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This is used for organization of keyframes

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that are used for certain purposes.

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For example, you can mark your extreme pose keyframes

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by selecting them, right-click in the timeline

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for a context menu, go to keyframe type and select extreme.

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This will give your selected keyframes

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the extreme pink keyframe color.

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Other colors include blue, orange, and green.

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For hockey users, you can hover over the timeline

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and press the R key to bring up the keyframe type menu.

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And those are the fundamentals of keyframes.

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I hope this gives you insight on how animation works

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and how to create your own animation in Blender.

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In the meantime, we'll be going over how to edit

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and manipulate keyframes in the dope sheet,

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the timeline, and the graph editor in their separate videos.