Animation Panel

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The Animation Panel is the main interface for manipulating animation in Terragen 4. It incorporates a Timeline with playback controls, a Curve Editor for editing animation with splines or function curves and a Dope Sheet for editing key positions and timing.

The Animation Panel can be opened from the View menu or from the animation buttons in node param views. It can be used in two ways. You can open it in the main TG4 window, where it will be located at the bottom of the main part of the window, below the 3D Preview and network view. It can also be opened in a standalone window.

When the Animation Panel is shown in the main TG4 window it can be minimised, maximised and closed in the same sort of way as the 3D Preview and Network View.

The top part of the Animation Panel contains the Timeline. The Timeline gives an overview of the current selected param component as well as showing the working frame range and active frame position. It also incorporates playback controls. The Timeline can be shown and hidden by clicking the Timeline button at the right of the window. You can see more information about the Timeline here.

Below the Timeline is the area where the Curve Editor and Dope Sheet are displayed. The Curve Editor is shown when the Animation Panel opens. You can change to the Dope Sheet using the Dope Sheet button on the right side of the Panel. You can also split and unsplit this part of the window so that you can see the Curve Editor and Dope Sheet at the same time.

You can read more about the Curve Editor here and the Dope Sheet here.

Making params show in the Animation Panel
To get a param to show up the Animation Panel you will first need to set at least one key on them. You can use the animation button for the param to do this.

Copy and Paste in the Animation Panel
You can copy and paste keys in the Dope Sheet and Curve Editor. Currently you can only copy and paste keys in those views. You can't, for example, paste the keys into a text editor.

When you paste keys they're inserted at the current frame cursor position. Pasted keys will replace any keys that are at the same frame.

You can also duplicate keys. Duplicating only works in the view you're currently working with. When you duplicate keys they're inserted one frame past the last existing key. A quick way to set up a repeating curve is to duplicate some keys, use the nudge key to move them back one frame and then duplicate the keys again.

When you've pasted or duplicated keys the view will move to centre on the newly added keys.

At the moment the Dope Sheet has some special behaviour for copying and pasting keys. Keys are only copied from and pasted to the param/component that is currently selected in the node list. Even if you select keys from multiple params and components only the keys belonging to the currently selected item in the list are copied. Another restriction is that you can't copy and paste metakeys (the yellow keys).

Timeline
You can read about the Timeline here.

Curve Editor
You can read about the Curve Editor here.

Dope Sheet
You can read about the Dope Sheet here.


Back to the Animation Module Reference

The Node List is a part of the Terragen interface that shows a list of nodes along the left side of the application window. The Node List generally shows only those nodes that are relevant to the current Layout (e.g. Terrain, Atmosphere). It sometimes includes buttons or other controls that are specific to a particular Layout as well. The Node List is hierarchical and each level is collapsible.