Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 5.5 Help Manual page 97

Adobe After Effects Help
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Time-vary stopwatch
Each layer property has a time-vary stopwatch icon ( ) that you click to begin the
animation process. Once the stopwatch is active for a specific property, After Effects
automatically sets new keyframes whenever you change the current time and the
property value. When the stopwatch is inactive, no keyframes are present. If you type a
value for a layer property while the stopwatch is inactive, the value remains in effect for
the duration of the layer.
A
B
A. Selected stopwatch B. Deselected stopwatch
Keyframe navigator
After you set the initial keyframe for a property, After Effects displays the keyframe
navigator, which you can use to move from keyframe to keyframe or to set or remove
keyframes. When the keyframe navigator box is selected, the current-time marker lies
precisely at a keyframe for that layer property. When it is deselected, the current-time
marker lies between keyframes. When arrows appear on each side of the keyframe
navigator box, other keyframes for that property exist on both sides of the current time.
Click the arrows to move to the previous or next keyframe. The keyframe navigator can
be detached from the A/V Features panel to function as its own panel by choosing
Panel > Keys from the Timeline window menu.
A
B
C
A. Keyframe at current time B. No keyframe at current time C. No keyframes for layer property
Keyframe icons
The appearance of a keyframe icon depends on the interpolation method you chose for
the interval between keyframes. When half of the icon is gray, the gray half indicates that
there is no keyframe adjacent to that side, or that its interpolation is overridden by the
Hold interpolation applied to the preceding keyframe. See "Comparing interpolation
methods" on page 123 for more information on the keyframe icons.
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Animating Layers
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