• Adobe After Effects

  Detailed, subtle tweaking of keyframe velocity in AE’s Graph Editor

  Posted by Xavier Bonet on February 9, 2017 at 4:50 pm

  Is there any way to manually edit a keyframe’s velocity in the Graph Editor in a detailed, subtle way? Other tools allow you to hold the CMD-key in order to make subtle changes. But as I’m pressing every key I can think of, each time I move around the little “vector arm thingys” for the influence, the changes re just too dramatic. Plus, I can’t find a way to lock the speed and just move around the influence.

  Yes, I could just right-click and go to Keyframe Velocity and input the values I want… but is there no way to do it manually. If there is, I’d like to learn it; it’ll surely be quicker than having to open up a dialogue box, input values, see if the result is what you want, open back up, tweak values, etc., etc.

  Thanks!

  Xavier Bonet replied 9 years, 3 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Walter Soyka

  February 9, 2017 at 5:39 pm

  I’m rather fond of Keysmith for direct, precise keyframe control:
  https://aescripts.com/keysmith/

  Walter Soyka
  Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  @keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]
• 

  Darby Edelen

  February 9, 2017 at 8:02 pm

  [Xavier Bonet] “Is there any way to manually edit a keyframe’s velocity in the Graph Editor in a detailed, subtle way? Other tools allow you to hold the CMD-key in order to make subtle changes. But as I’m pressing every key I can think of, each time I move around the little “vector arm thingys” for the influence, the changes re just too dramatic. Plus, I can’t find a way to lock the speed and just move around the influence.

  Yes, I could just right-click and go to Keyframe Velocity and input the values I want… but is there no way to do it manually. If there is, I’d like to learn it; it’ll surely be quicker than having to open up a dialogue box, input values, see if the result is what you want, open back up, tweak values, etc., etc.

  Thanks!”

  The line representing a keyframe’s influence can extend from 0% (the line starts and ends at the keyframe) to 100% (the line starts at the keyframe and ends halfway to the next keyframe). Because these percentages are based on the display distance between keyframes in the graph editor the precision you get with two keyframes that appear far apart is higher than two keyframes that appear close together.

  You can use this knowledge to improve your precision by zooming into the graph editor. My favorite method for zooming in the graph is to hold alt-Z (opt-Z on Mac) and left-click drag left and right. You could also hold Z and draw a bounding box around the influence line.

  I don’t have a solution for locking the speed of the keyframe when you’re making these adjustments. I will say that I gave up on aiming for ‘precise’ speed and influence values a long time ago in the graph editor. I find I can iterate faster and actually get better results if I don’t look too much at the numbers and just look at the resulting graph and motion.

  Another quick tip: in the graph editor you don’t need to right-click the keyframe and select a menu item to get to the keyframe velocity dialog. Just double-click the keyframe.

  Darby Edelen
• 

  Xavier Bonet

  February 13, 2017 at 2:56 pm

  Thanks a lot for both of your replies! I’m currently in the middle of a difficult project whose deadline is… well, yesterday! So I’ve downloaded Keysmith as recommended by Walter and will be playing around with it once I finish this project. For now, I’ll be trying out Darby’s recommendations (btw, thanks a lot for the two shortcuts given!) and see how I fare with that. Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to answer! Cheers!

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