Animating Strokes/Shapes

All strokes/shapes that appear on more than one frame can be animated. By default, the autokey option in the RotoPaint tool settings is on, which means your changes to a stroke/shape automatically creates keyframes and animates your stroke/shape. You can also access all the curves and shapes in the Curve Editor and Dope Sheet.

To animate a stroke/shape using autokey

1.

Draw a stroke/shape that appears on more than one frame. By default, the autokey option in the RotoPaint tool settings is selected and a keyframe is automatically created in the first frame your stroke/shape appears.

2.

Move to a new frame.

3.

With one of the Select tools, select the points or the stroke/shape you want to animate.

4.

Adjust the points in your stroke/shape position or change the stroke/shape’s attributes as necessary. A new keyframe is automatically set. The frame marker on the timeline turns blue to indicate the selected stroke/shape is animated.

5.

Repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 for all the frames you want to set as key frames.

Tip:  Note that if you are translating an entire stroke/shape using the Transform tab, RotoPaint also draws a track of the stroke/shape’s animated position. You can, for example, use the track in another node (such as Tracker or CameraTracker) by Cmd/Ctrl+dragging the values from the translate animation button to an appropriate field in another node.

To animate strokes/shapes manually

If you choose to switch the autokey function off, you can still create key frames manually. You can set key frames to the entire stroke/shape, or the stroke/shape’s spline, transformation or attributes.

1.

Move to the frame where you want to create a keyframe and select your stroke/shape.

2.

Do one of the following:

• If you want to create a key that is set to animate the entire stroke/shape, right-click on the stroke/shape and select set key > all.

• If you want to create a key that is set to animate a position, right-click on the stroke/shape and select set key > spline.

• If you want to create a key that is set to animate transformation, right-click on the stroke/shape and select set key > transform.

• If you want to create a key that is set to animate attributes, right-click on the stroke/shape and select set key > attributes.

If you have autokey turned off, you can only adjust a point in a stroke/shape at a keyframe. In other words, in order to make changes to a point, you either have to move to an existing keyframe on the timeline, or you need to create a new keyframe first.