Animation Controls

The Time and Range sliders are Maya's primary controls for creating and fine-tuning your animation (Figure 12.2).

Figure 12.2. The Time and Range sliders allow you to play back animation, control your position in time, and choose the portion of the animation you're looking at.

• Time slider The Time slider determines your position in time. It is the area at the bottom of the screen that includes the playback buttons and timeline (Figure 12.3). You can click any frame to go to that point in time, or you can click and drag to preview a region of animation. You also use the Time slider to select, move, and scale keyframes.

  Figure 12.3. Click any point in the timeline to go to that time.

  

  
  

• Current Time indicator This indicator shows the present position in time (Figure 12.4).

  Figure 12.4. The Current Time indicator shows what frame you are on. If you want to cut, copy, or delete a frame in the timeline, the Current Time indicator must be over that frame.

  

  
  

• Current Time field This field also shows the current position in time. You can type a number in this field to change the current time (Figure 12.5).

  Figure 12.5. The Current Time field also tells you where you are in time. You can type any time here (even one that's not included in the playback range) and go to that time.

  

  
  

• Start Time/End Time fields These values show the time span for the entire animation. The numbers establish the length of time within which the Range slider can move (Figure 12.6).

  Figure 12.6. The number fields on the far left and far right show the start and end times. You should generally set these to the start and end of your entire animation. They can be changed at any time.

  

  
  

• Range slider This slider controls the portion of time you're viewing (Figure 12.7). It allows you to quickly adjust which portion of the animation shows up in the timeline. You can use the buttons on the ends to change the playback start and end times, or you can drag the range forward or backward as a whole. This is helpful when you want to work on only small portions of an animation. The smaller the range, the easier it is to pick individual frames.

  Figure 12.7. The Range slider provides a convenient means of changing which portion of the animation is currently in the timeline.

  

  
  

• Playback Start Time/Playback End Time fields These values control the range of animation that will play back, much like the Range slider (Figure 12.8).

  Figure 12.8. The playback start and end times appear in the fields on the left and right. You can type the times to change the beginning and end of your timeline.

  

  
  

• Playback buttons These controls are like the buttons on a CD player (Figure 12.9). The Rewind and Fast Forward buttons change the current time to the start or end of the playback range. You can step forward one frame at a time or move to the next or previous keyframe. There is a Play button to go forward or backward; it toggles to a Stop button during playback.

  Figure 12.9. From left to right, the playback buttons do the following: go to the start of the playback range, step back one frame, step back one key, play backward, play forward, step forward one key, step forward one frame, go to the end of the playback range.

  

  
  

• Auto Keyframe toggle This button turns Auto Keyframing on and off (Figure 12.10). If it is on, any attribute that is already keyframed will be automatically keyframed again when you change its value.

  Figure 12.10. The Auto Keyframe function is on when the button looks like this.

  

  
  

• Animation Preferences button This button opens a window to set animation preferences (Figure 12.11). It also provides a convenient way to access all general preferences in Maya.

  Figure 12.11. This is the Animation Preferences button.

  

  
  

• Current Character Set menu This sets which character in a scene you're currently working on (Figure 12.12). When working with more than one character, it's helpful to be able to access individual characters' attributes.

  Figure 12.12. You can create and choose character sets here.