Working with the timeline

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. Your animation runs too fast, and you want it slower. Do you need to draw it again? No. Today we will learn the timeline in Synfig, and how to change timing just by moving waypoints.

First, the meaning. The timeline is the part of the window that shows time from the start to the end of the animation. It lets you jump to any moment and see what happens there. In Synfig, it is made of the time slider, the Timetrack panel and the playback buttons. Everything about when things happen is controlled here.

Let us name the parts. The time slider is a bar with a marker showing the current time. The time field shows the current time as a number, which you can type. The playback buttons play, pause and jump. The Timetrack panel shows waypoints for each parameter. The end time field sets where the animation stops.

The playback buttons work like a video player. Play starts the animation and Pause stops it. Previous frame and next frame move one frame at a time, which helps check small movements. Seek to begin and seek to end jump to the first or last frame. Previous and next keyframe jump between your keyframes.

Time can be read in more than one way. It can show seconds and frames, like one second and twelve frames. It can also show only frames, like frame 36. At 24 fps, one second and twelve frames is the same moment as frame 36. You can change the time format in the program settings.

The Timetrack is where changes are shown. Each row of the Timetrack matches one parameter in the Params panel. A waypoint appears in a row when that parameter changes in animation mode. Its position shows when the change happens. Rows for layers and groups also show a summary of all waypoints inside them.

You can edit waypoints directly. Drag a waypoint left or right to change when the change happens. Hold Shift and drag, or select several, to move a group together. Right click a waypoint to duplicate or remove it. Right click also lets you change how the movement flows, which we see next.

Interpolation means how Synfig fills the values between two waypoints. Clamped is the default, and it moves smoothly without overshooting. TCB makes very smooth curves, but may overshoot a little. Constant holds the value, then jumps suddenly. Ease In or Out starts or stops slowly, like a car braking. Linear moves at one steady speed.

Now back to our problem. A ball moves from left to right in 1 second, which is too fast. Drag the second waypoint from 1 second to 3 seconds. The ball now takes 3 seconds, so it moves slower. If the animation goes past the end, raise the end time in Canvas Properties.

Pause and predict. A ball moves between waypoints at 0 seconds and 2 seconds. You drag the second waypoint to 1 second. Will the ball move faster or slower? Faster, because it covers the same distance in half the time. The distance did not change, only the time did.

Long animations need a bigger view of time. Scroll with the mouse over the Timetrack to zoom in or out on time. Zoom in to place waypoints on exact frames. Drag the time slider marker to scrub, which means moving quickly through time to check motion.

Let us revise what we learned today. The timeline controls when things happen. Use the time slider, time field and playback buttons to move through time. Waypoints in the Timetrack show each change. Drag a waypoint to change timing, without drawing again. Interpolation decides how the motion flows, like linear or ease. Open an old animation and try slowing it down.