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Dope Sheet 491

Sub-frame keys

Dope Sheet, just like the Curve Editor, al lows you

to use soft selection on keys. This is extremely

useful when you are dealing with massive

quantities of keys, such as in motion-capture data

files. Combine this with scaling keys for a means

to manipulate motion data.

Soft selection o f Dope Sheet k eys

Edit Ra nges Mode

When Edit Ranges is turned on, the animation

tracks are displayed as range bars; no individual

keys are visible. Use Ranges when you only want

to change how long something happens, or when

it starts and ends, rather than when you need to

manipulate particular keys within an ac tion.

Edit Ranges mode

Modify Subtree and Modify Child Keys

WhenworkinginDopeSheet,youcanturnon

or off M odify Subtree and Modify Child K eys.

These let you automatically move the keys for the

children, and/or the tracks for the subtree. If you

experienceaslowdownwhileworkingwithDope

Sheet, try turning these off, and moving the keys

manually instead. Modify Subtree is on by default

in Dope Sheet, but off in Curve Editor.

Time Editing

Dope Sheet offers you a variety of tools for working

directly with time. You can select a period of time,

which includes all the keys within that period, and

then perfor m different operations on that time

segment. You c an copy and paste t i me to loop

animations, or reverse time so the animation plays

backward.Youcaninserttimetoaddaspacetoan

animation, or delete time to shorten a motion.

Note: For Dope Sheet procedures, see the

individual tools and menu choices within the links

below.

Dope S heet S peed I mpr ovements

In 3ds Max, only tracks displayed in the current

field of view are computed, optimizing the

responsiveness of the Dope Sheet editor.

Dope Sheet now temporarily retains the key caches

so tracks that have already been computed as a

result of the p arent being computed needn’t be

recomputed. The cache is used instead.

The default auto-navigation settings for the

Dope Sheet editor now only auto-expand to the

node track for the currently selected object. This

reduces the number of tracks whose keys need to

be displayed and also helps enforce the top-down

workflow the Dope Sheet editor is desig ned for.