Playback and Options

To play the animation, either press the buttons at the bottom of the viewer, or use the keyboard shortcuts.

Viewer's Buttons and Time Controler

At the bottom of the viewer is the selector for connecting a timeline, as described in the Mutiple Timelines and Viewers section on the previous page.

Next to it is a Time controller, consisting of a timecode and its frame equivalent:

• Click on the timecode or frame number to modify one of the values.
• Click drag frames to move forward or backward in time.

To the left of the Time Controller, a stopwatch icon displays a Mini-Timeline at the bottom of the Viewer. Its zoom ratio and positioning are the same as that of the Timeline connected to the Viewer. The keyboard shortcuts for navigating these Mini-Timelines are the same.

This is especially useful when working in full-screen mode with a maximized Viewer.

Then there are six buttons for :

• Back to the beginning of the composition (Ctrl/Cmd + Left)
• Go back one frame (Left)
• Jouer l'animation en avant (J)
• Move forward one frame (Right)
• Jouer l'animation en avant (Space or L)
• Go to end of composition (Ctrl/Cmd + Right)

Two shortcuts recall editing software workflows, working in Autograph:

• Play animation in reverse: J
• Stop playback: K
• Play animation forward: L

Playback Options

In the timeline header, on the right is a button representing a gear in a stopwatch.

It shows:

• Playing mode:

  • Loop: plays the animation in a loop
  • Once: will stop after reaching the end of the composition or the last Work Area
  • Bounce: also known as Ping-Pong, will play the animation forwards and backwards without stopping

• Frame mode:

  • All Frames: computes all images one after the other, possibly slower than the FPS defined by the composition. The animation will be played back at the correct speed once all the images have been cached.
  • Drop Frames: respects the FPS defined by the composition. If an image requires more processing time, it is ignored and Autograph move on to the next one. This option allows an Audio Mix connected to the composition to be played back smoothly, so you can check that graphic elements are in sync with the music.

• Play Visible Range: when this option is enabled, the Work Area are ignored in order to read (usually in a loop) the visible area in the Timeline. This is very useful when you need to adjust a Motion-Path by focusing on a very specific part of the animation.

• Plaback Autoscroll: moves the view on the Timeline automatically when the Playhead moves and reaches the Dope sheet limit.

Selection Options

Then there are two options for selecting:

• Meta Keyframes
• Visibility Keyframes

By default, these two types of keyframes can be selected by clicking directly on them, but not with a selection rectangle.

Meta Keyframes

If the user asks to display only the Position of a Layer, by pressing the P key, the Meta Keys will also be displayed on the Transform parameter. These Meta Keys can be more numerous than the Position Key, as they represent other keyframes created on other parameters, such as Rotation or Scale.

Creating a large selection rectangle to select Position keys before deleting them would select Meta Keys from other parameters and could also delete other non-visible keys. This is why this option is OFF by default.

But if your goal is to delete all Transform keys at once, enabling it allows you to select all the keys on a single line before deleting them.

Visibility Keyframes

The same logic applies to Visibility Keys. Selecting them accidentally by drawing a selection rectangle around the Position parameter could cause several layers to disappear. That's why this option is OFF by default.

Here again, if your goal is to remove a large number of Visibility keys by working directly with block handles located in the Dope sheet, this option can be very useful.