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508 Chapter 12: Animation
Sheet. The Dope Sheet was a vertical chart that
served as instructions to the camer a operator.
Dialogue and camera actions were indicated
over a numbered list that represented each shot,
which became a single photographed frame of
the animated movie. The classical exposure
sheet also included instr uctions for compositing
the cel drawings of an imated characters over
backgrounds. This device serves as inspiration for
the Dope Sheet tool in 3ds Max.
The 3ds Max Dope Sheet editor is similar to
the classic X sheet. It displays keyframes over
time, only using a horizontal graph (rather than
vertical). This provides tools for adjusting the
timing of your animation. Here, you can see all
the keys in a spreadsheet-type interface. You can
select any or all of the keys in a scene, scale them,
move them, copy and paste them, or otherwise
work d i rectly here, rather than in the view port.
You can choose to select the keys for children, or
subtree, or both, so you can make simple changes
that affect many objects and their keys at once.
A common use of Dope Sheet is to stagger the
movement of a character’s limbs so they don’t
all move simultaneously. If you have a crowd of
characters, you could use D ope Sheet to shift
movements s o they don’t all move in unison.
Dop e S heet M enus a nd Tools
IntheDopeSheet,youcanselectanyorallofthe
keysinascene,scalethem,movethem,copyand
paste them, or otherwise work directly, rather than
working w ith objects in viewports. You can choose
to select the keys for children, or subtree or both,
so you can make simple changes that affect many
objects and their keys at once.
Dope Sheet allows for soft-select ion of keys which
is very useful when working with motion capture
datathathaskeysoneveryframe.
Dope Sheet provides tools for working directly
w ith t ime. You can select, cut, copy, paste, and
insert and reverse time using the tools on the Time
menu.
Like the Curve Editor (page 2–507),DopeSheet
has both a menu bar and toolbars to provide you
quick access to tools.
Dope Sh eet menu bar
Unlike Cur ve Editor, Dope Sheet has two mo des:
Edit Keys and Edit Ranges. These modes change
the display in the Key window.
Edit K eys Mode
When Edit Keys is turned on, the keyframes are
displayed as boxes within rectangles on a grid.
The keys are color-coded to show what has been
keyframed ( posit ion is red, scale is yellow, rotation
is g reen, and so on.)
Colored keys
Dope Sheet keys are now displayed as rectangles
within boxes so you can easily spot sub-frame
keys, keys that fall in-between frames. Keys that
fill the boxes are on the f rame, keys that are small
rectangles are sub-frame.