How to View the Animation Timeline in Dopesheet or F-Curve Mode

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Instructor Rick Barrett

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  • Duration: 02:01
  • Views: 18842
  • Made with Release: 17
  • Works with Release: 17 and greater

Toggling the C4D R17 Timeline Dopesheet and F-Curve Mode

Cinema 4D Release 17 now has two separate commands to open the Timeline - directly into Dopesheet or F-Curve mode. Learn about the features of each of these modes, and how you can toggle between them easily with the Tab key. You'll also learn how Spacebar now plays or pauses the animation playback, and how to enable the old "Dopesheet Mode" preference, now called "Draw Keys on Cells".

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Transcript

One of the most obvious animation workflow changes in Cinema 4D Release 17 is the addition of separate menu items for the Dopesheet and the F-Curve Mode of the timeline. The Dopesheet Mode is the timeline that you're familiar with, and the F-Curve is simply opening an additional timeline specifically into the F-Curve mode. Now that change was made to make it a little bit easier to get into each mode, and also to make the naming a little bit more familiar to users of other applications. It also, because it opens up a separate timeline window, allows you to set up different options for the linking and filtering within this timeline that are consistent with your F-Curve workflow versus the settings you might choose in your main timeline or Dopesheet window. Now of course you can still switch any timeline window back and forth between the F-Curve and the Dopesheet Mode, and the way you do that now is using the tab button. Now the main reason for that change is that you can now hit spacebar to play and pause your animation while the timeline is active. And that's common in virtually any non-linear editor. So spacebar timeline, Dopesheet Mode, F-Curve window and, if you're looking for the old Dopesheet Mode, which was a preference here in the timeline preferences, which basically shifts the keys. Let's zoom in here so you can see. So you see how right now the keys are right on the line where the 94 is? Well, in a lot of other apps, they fit in the cell between the 94 and the 95, and that was a preference that used to be called Dopesheet Mode. It is now called Draw Keys on Cells. So if I check that box, you'll see that everything shifts over, just like they did with the old Dopesheet preference. So hopefully after this quick tutorial, you won't be a dope the next time somebody asks you to open the Dopesheet.
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