Keyframes are something with which new users are usually unfamiliar. It can take a while to get one’s head wrapped around them before being able to them effectively. Hopefully this article can help shorten that learning curve. This is not really a tutorial nor is it an in-depth treatment of how to use them. However, it is a description of how to add or remove time from a keyframe . It is also worth noting that when you do this, time is added or removed from a slide without directly adjusting the slide time. This information is especially useful to know if you want to add time without affecting other keyframes on the same layer.
IMPORTANT: Time is added to or removed from space located to the right of a keyframe (see exception below).
- Move the cursor over a keyframe and right click. Select “Add/Remove Time from Keyframe” from the resulting menu.
Add/Remove Time - In the resulting dialog (see below; note: the Photopia dialog is slightly different. The “Add/Remove …” line is what is important here), locate the box with the title After Keyframe. Enter or use the dropdown menu to select the keyframe to/from which to add/remove time. In the following box, which has the title of Time:
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- ADD time with a positive number (e.g., 2)
- REMOVE time with a negative number (e.g., -2)
Add/Remove Time - Time is added or removed only from the region in which the keyframe exists (in other words, the transition in/out region or slide time).
- Removing time from a last keyframe which is firewalled to the far right results in no removed time (since there is no time to the right of the keyframe to remove!)
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Exceptions.
PROSHOW. When there is no transition out time (located to the far right of the slide, to the right of the end of the slide time) and the last keyframe is firewalled to the far right, time added to this last keyframe is actually added to the keyframe’s LEFT side! If, however, the transition time is non-zero, time is added on the keyframe’s right side! This is odd, inconsistent behavior! Probably a bug masquerading as a feature. NOTE: This particular behavior exists in ProShow versions through Version 6.
PHOTOPIA. If time is removed from the firewalled last keyframe on the slide, time is removed from the left of the keyframe (the transition time is unaffected). If the removed time is larger than the available slide time, the time for the slide is reduced to zero. If time is deleted that exceeds the amount of time available between two adjacent keyframes, the remaining keyframe is the one that was leftmost.
Caveats.
- Only time that exists from the current keyframe and the next keyframe to the right is deletable. In
- Another limit is related to the amount of time between the keyframe and the point where the slide time begins/ends and transition time ends/begins. If the amount of time deleted is larger than the available amount time to delete, all time (and only the time) from the keyframe to the demarcation (that is where the slide time ends and the transition out starts) is deleted. For instance, if all time between two keyframes is removed, the keyframe that was to the right of the keyframe from which time is removed ceases to exist (the values of the resulting keyframe are those of the keyframe that was leftmost).
- Suppose keyframe 1 is located at the far left (firewalled on the left side, inside the transition region) and the transition time is a total of 3 seconds. If the amount of time selected to delete is 20s, the entire transition time is deleted and the slide time is unaffected. That is, only 3 seconds is removed from the timeline – all of it from the time associated with the transition. The time associated with the slide time is completely unaffected.
- IMPORTANT. Removing time also results in time being removed from all other layers on the slide from the time at which the key frame exists. As such, be careful that you don’t end up with significantly overlapped or removed (i.e., deleted) keyframes on those other layers (Photopia will delete the associated keyframes … but will warn you first). If you are removing time from a slide to shorten it (and/or to remove excess/unneeded time), ensure that no important keyframes exist to the right of that time point on any layer above or below the layer from which time is being removed.
PROSHOW. A bug exists in ProShow releases through v6 that can cause keyframes to jump into a position where they would not normally appear (such as from keyframe 1, 2, 3, and 4 to keyframe 1, 3, 2, 4). If time is removed from a keyframe that is not the last keyframe (on the current or another layer), 1 or more of these keyframes may land in front of a keyframe that it should normally exist to the right of! That is, keyframe 4 may appear anywhere before any of the other keyframes except for a firewalled keyframe 1 (that is, keyframe 1 is as far left as it can possibly go).
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