From BlenderWiki

Ipo Curves Window

This is the Ipo Curve Editor:

Header

Here you find:

• the menus
• a first block of controls related to Ipo curves types
• a second one concerning the Ipo datablocks
• a few other tools (like the copy/paste buttons).

The only view-related control is the “dashed cross hair” button in the right, which activates the “zoom to selected area” (same as ⇧ ShiftB). We will describe the other elements more precisely in the following pages.

View menu

Apart from the standard options like zoom-in/out, maximize window, center view on cursor, etc., this menu gathers various other options:

Show Keys (K)

Enables the “keyframe” mode, see above.

AutoMerge Keyframes

I’m not sure about this option, enabled by default. I guess it should merge keyframes when they are very close (in time), but it does not seems to work…

Play Animation (AltA)

Starts the playback of the animation, from the current frame (and then cycle inside the animation range, or preview range if defined, see below).

Set Preview Range, Clear Preview Range (CtrlP, AltP)

These entries allow you to define/clear a temporary preview range to use for the AltA realtime playback (this is the same thing as the Pr option of the Timeline window header).

Lock Time to Other Windows

Again, this is the same option as found in the View menu of the timeline: it allows you to synchronize the horizontal (time) scale of all “time windows” that have this option set.

Lock View Area

Don’t know what this option does…

Marker menu

This window supports markers, see this page for details on this topic.

Mode menu

This window has three different “modes”, which allow different kind of actions on the Ipos.
We will detail their respective editing features in the next pages.

Depending on the mode you choose, the fourth menu in the header will change name:

Curve mode (default)

The default one, similar to the Object mode of the 3D views, displays (and edits) the curves “as a whole”. Keyframes are materialized by dots, which are white for selected curves and black for unselected ones.

In this mode, the fourth menu is named "Curve".

The Ipo Curve Editor window, default visualization.

Keyframe mode (K, or View » Show Keys)

In this mode you can select the keyframes (visualized as a yellow vertical line) and edit their time-position.

You have no direct control on the curves in this mode: in fact, it allows editing operations quite similar to those you have in the Action Editor window.

In this mode, the fourth menu is named "Key".

The Ipo Curve Editor window, “keyframe” visualization.

Edit mode (⇆ Tab)

In this mode you can edit each keyframe of the selected curves as Bézier handles (for default interpolation).

In this mode, the fourth menu is named "Point".

The Ipo Curve Editor window, “edit” mode.

Ipo Type controls

Action button

If you enable the small “man” button, the current Ipo can be edited in the current action.

Mute button

By enabling the small “eye” button, Ipo datablocks can be muted.

Ipo Type selector

Ipo Curve Editor can only visualize curves belonging to one type of Ipo datablock at a time.

With the Ipo Type menu, you can choose which type of curves has to be shown in the Ipo Editor (for example, object's curves, material's curves, constraints' curves, etc).
After you have done this, you can eventually select which datablock of the chosen type has to be visualized (see how below).

Channel number field

For "textured" Ipo datablocks, to the right of the Ipo type selector, you have a small numeric field that allows you to select which channel’s properties are currently shown: 0 for the first (top-most) texture, 1 for the second one, and so on.

The Ipo Type selector in two different examples.

Object type, with the “Action” and “Mute” buttons to the left, and a linked Ipo datablock.

Material type, with the “texture index” to its right, and no Ipo datablock linked.

Datablock controls

Datablock selector

In a certain object, all curves of the same type form a datablock called "Ipo datablocks".

In the datablock selector, you can select which Ipo datablock of the type chosen in the Ipo Type selector has to be applied to the selected objects.

This function will be explained later in this chapter.

The Pin option

By default, the Ipo Editor shows the chosen Ipo datablock for the active object.

However, you can “lock” the editor to the current datablock with the pin option:

• Select an object and Ipo type you want to lock to.
• In the Ipo window, click on the “pin” button, to the left of the datablock set of controls.
• In the view, the background of the curves area turns slightly pink, and until you disable the “pin” button, no matter which object is active, this window will always display/edit the Ipos of its “locked to” Ipo datablock.
• As soon as you unpin an Ipo Curve Editor window, it shows the selected object’s Ipos again.

This can be very useful if you have two or more Ipo windows: one is pinned to an object’s Ipo datablock, the other shows the active object’s datablocks, so you can work on both simultaneously, without having to switch object selection over and over.

View

Curves area

Here you can see and edit the Ipo curves.

Time cursor

The current frame is represented as a green vertical line, and it's called "time cursor".

As in the timeline, you can change the current frame by LMB -clicking in different locations and scrub through your animation by LMB -clicking and dragging.

Axes

The X-axis represents the time in your scene (always in frames).

The Y-axis represents the value controlled by each Ipo.

Depending on the selected curves, the values have different meaning: for example rotation Ipo are shown in degrees, locations in Blender Units.

Some Ipo curves are limited, either in value or in time: for example, the property corresponding to a curve might take only values between 0.0 and 1.0. In this case, the limits are materialized by black lines (and when the curve goes over these limits, it is internally either ignored or clamped).

Curves visualization

A curve is only visible in this view if:

• It has at least one keyframe.
• It is set visible in the list to the right (see below).

Some Ipo curves can only take discrete values (like only integer ones), in which case they are displayed as “stairways”, whatever is their real interpolation mode.

In (the Ipo Curve Editor window) picture, the red curve (LocX) is selected, whereas the orange one (LocY) is only visible.

Editor operations

As with most windows, you can:

• pan this view vertically (values) or horizontally (time) with MMB click and drag
• zoom in/out with Wheel
• do other common windows operation

Curve list area

To the right of the main view, lays the list of Ipo curves for the current Ipo type (Object, Material, etc.).

The list is often too long to be fully visible in the window: you can pan it vertically with MMB click and drag.

This part also controls/shows which curves are “real” (i.e. are keyed), visible and selected, and which one is active:

Keyed curves

have a small rectangle to the left of their name, colored differently for each channel

see LocX, LocY and LocZ in (the Ipo Curve Editor window)

Visible curves

have their name in white (note that a curve can be set visible, even without any keyframe – it will then remain hidden…).

see LocX and LocY in (the Ipo Curve Editor window)

Selected curves

have their rectangle “pushed”

see LocX in (the Ipo Curve Editor window)

Active curve

has its small rectangle outlined in black (might be neither existing yet nor visible)

see LocZ in (the Ipo Curve Editor window)

To set an Ipo curve visible, click LMB on its name in the right list. As usual, use ⇧ ShiftLMB to (un)set visibility for several curves at once.

See Also

• Reference Manual: Ipo Window