Shifting keyframes / curves by value

[Mark Spencer]

Command-option dragging on a keyframe in the Canvas will move the entire motion path without setting a new keyframe.

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Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net

[Troy Grady]

Thanks for the speedy response Mark! Yep, I see that you can drag the curve, but there’s no snapping. The resulting values are only ballparks. What I’m looking to do is a move a whole curve relatively by a specific amount, or move the whole curve to a specific value.

e.g. Adjusting keyframe *timing* in this respect is fantastically useful. Selecting a range of points and doing either “+100” or “+/delete/100” will move the selection either forward by 100 frames, or to the 100th frame.

[Mark Spencer]

Have you tried doing that in the keyframe editor, using the box tool to select the keyframes?

—
Mark Spencer
Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
Apple-certified Master Trainer
Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
https://www.applemotion.net

[Troy Grady]

Yep. The action of the box tool doesn’t appear to be any different than the standard select tool in this regard. I can drag up or down, and constrain motion either horizontally or vertically, but the vertical movement doesn’t snap. I’ve busted out my 8th grade permutations math to try every combination of modifier keys I can think of, hoping for easter egg snapping behavior, but haven’t found any!

[Alex Gollner]

Silly way of doing this:

1. Duplicate the object
2. Delete the position keyframes (using Reset Parameter in the context menu for the Position parameter)
3. Apply a Parameter Link Behavior and link the duplicate’s Position parameter to the Position parameter of your original object
4. Change the relative position of the duplicate by editing the X offset, Y offset and Z offset parameters of the Link behavior
5. Select the duplicate and choose Convert to Keyframes from the Object menu

@alex4d

___________________________________________________
Alexandre Gollner,
Editor, Zone 2-North West, London

alex4d on twitter, facebook, .wordpress.com & .com

[Troy Grady]

Ha — convert to keyframes. Genius. You win the internet today!

Thanks!

[Jason Watson]

I’m not entirely sure if this applies to your situation, and it may also be of limited utility, but if you group the object (Cmd+Shift+G) you can then select that group and re-position it. After you have re-positioned it you can take the object back out of the group and it seems to translate the keyframes, as far as I can tell. (if you leave it in the group the coordinates can be a little wonky…)

It’s kind of a quick and dirty solution, but it has the advantage of not creating any superfluous keyframes like Convert to Keyframes would in most situations, which is certainly helpful if you still want to make some more adjustments in the motion path. Now that the auto-keyframing is there I’ve kind of had to use this a lot…

[Troy Grady]

Ok now that’s just embarrassing. At least I could be forgiven for missing the “convert-to-keyframes” option, because I only rarely do that. But your solution… totally works! And I do it all the time, for static object coordinates — just not with keyframed objects, since I’m normally a motion path / behaviors junkie.

Thanks for the great replies everyone!