Animation editor usage

[Pancho]

Managed to not keyframe my stuff for a long time.

So I'm a bit astonished to find the Frame entry field grayed out at the left bottom of the animation editor though I selected a keyframe. Only if I move the frame maunally the entry box gets responsible. Once the key is deselected the entry box is gray again upon the next selection. How do I unlock this field permanenty?

Also I couldn't find out how to scale the keys on the timeline, e.g. scale the whole animation/selected keyframes either manually or by a floating point number.

 

This sounds like the most basic stuff, but I couldn't find anything in the docs.

Cheers
Tom

[ikoon]

Hi Tom, as regards the greying out. I am not sure if I understand right. The "keyframe" can be selected as time, when you click on the vertical handle:

as a value, when you click on the rhombus :

or as both value and time, when you select both (most often by dragging a marque):

 

I have this setting, because I don't like nonselected handles visible:

 

 

As regards the scaling. You can enable "box handle" for selected keyframes and pivot here with these icons, default hotkeys are Y and Shift-Y

 

 

 

[Pancho]

Thanks soooo much. Didn't see the vertical handle since it was blended out. Now get it!!! : )

[ikoon]

Hi Pancho! I am glad that I helped. I like the Houdini Animation Editor a lot, there are many "hidden" features to all those handles ... which made me confused at first. But they are useful.

To make my answer more complete, for bezier keyframe, you may also select (or drag) the tip of the bezier handle or the "line" of the bezier handle. Then, for example, with Ctrl pressed, each of these partial handles give you different behaviour. Good luck with your work!