Keyframes, Hold and Finish

#Keyframes

Keyframes are automatic. There is nothing to add or switch on: every media, gradient and vector layer (the Background aside) has one pose on each scene and one keyframe that decides when that pose lands. Link the scene to another one and the layer travels between its two poses on its own. It animates the layer itself: its position, size and rotation. Particle movement inside the layer is a separate thing, handled by Motion.

You can see where a layer travels without opening anything. In the layer's row in the Layers list, hover the layer's type icon to see which scenes it travels between and the keyframe's percentage (on an iPad, tap it). Hovering the keyframe marker on a scene bar says the same. To change a pose on another scene, pick that scene in the scene list: the same layer stays selected, so you can move, scale or turn it there straight away.

The only choice left is the curve of the move, and that is the optional Ease component. Without it the move is Auto, a plain linear join.

The keyframe marker

Each layer has one keyframe per scene, shown as a thin line in the layer's colour on that scene's bar at the bottom of the screen. It starts in the middle, at 50%. Drag it anywhere from the start of the scene to the end to change when the pose lands; hover it to read "Keyframe at N%", and while the paused canvas sits off the middle its corner chip reads "KF @ N%". While the preview is paused, dragging the marker scrubs the preview, so you can see the pose arrive as you move it. Select a different layer and the bars show that layer's markers.

The keyframe is a percentage of its scene, not a time in seconds. Make a 1 second scene 3 seconds long and a keyframe at 50% stays at 50%, now at 1.5 seconds. That is true however the length changes: the Time field, dragging the boundary between two scene bars, or fitting a scene to a video. Hold is the one exception, covered below.

Scene length

The Time field in the bottom bar sets the scene length, from 0.1 to 30 seconds (new scenes are 3 seconds). Dragging the boundary between two scene bars retimes both while keeping their total the same. On a scene with a video the length is capped at the clip length, and the boundary drag is off.

#Link

A move needs two poses, and a link is how a layer gets its second one. Click + Add Link under the last scene in the scene list. It duplicates the scene as the next pose of the same composition and links the two: every layer is shared, and each has its own pose on each scene. Move, scale or turn a layer on the new scene and it travels there from the first. The ⎘ button that appears when you hover a scene thumbnail does the same from that scene.

+ Add Scene is different: it adds a blank, independent scene with nothing shared.

How a linked chain behaves

• A chain can run through as many scenes as you like, up to the project limit of 60 scenes. Linked scenes are grouped with a border and a name in the scene list (double-click to rename), and a thin rail under the scene bars shows where the chain runs.
• A layer added to one linked scene appears on all of them. Name and order are shared; each scene keeps its own eye (so a layer can be hidden in some scenes and shown in others), pose, keyframe, Ease, length and Hold.
• The new scene's keyframes start in the middle.
• What travels between poses: position, scale and rotation, the 3D Transform values, opacity, blur, brightness, hue, grain, crop and the gradient shape settings. For particles, the forces, the pose and the shape also carry through the chain, which is how a field melts from one formation into the next. Contrast and saturation are set for the whole layer and do not tween.
• Particle Count is locked across a chain, because the same particles have to exist on both sides of the cut.
• The pose link toggle (the link icon among a layer's row buttons) links or unlinks that layer across the linked scenes. Turning it on in a scene gives every linked scene that scene's layer: position, size and rotation, opacity, blur, the 3D Transform, crop, the picture, mask, blend and grade, and the gradient's shape and animation. On a Vector layer it also shares the whole Vector artwork (the artwork itself and each object's scale, rotation, opacity, count, index, spread and eye) and the particle settings. From then on a change on any of them changes all. Only colour stays each scene's own (the layer's colour, each object's colour, the gradient and overlay colours, a colour morph), and so does the layer's eye on its row, so a scene can still hide the layer. Turning it off keeps the shared values, and each scene can then change on its own.
• A project saved before v1.1079.0 could show a Vector layer's pose link as on while its scenes sat in different places. It opens with that link off and each scene where it was; turn the link on in the scene whose placement you want everywhere.
• Before v1.1080.0 a pose link shared the pose and a few settings only. A project saved then opens with a link off where its scenes differ in anything a link now shares, and every scene as it was; turn the link on in the scene whose values you want everywhere. A link whose scenes already match stays on.
• Each linked scene plays with its own picture and Background, in Play, Render Linked Scenes and Render Timeline. Three things still play the first scene's throughout: a picture layer that holds a video, a Background video, and a layered Background gradient.

A link belongs to the scenes, not to a card on the layer, so nothing on the layer has to stay while it is linked. To end a link, delete the linked scene.

Worked example

A 9:16 story where the product slides in, grows and settles.

1. Place the product on scene 1, off the left edge and small.
2. Click + Add Link. On the new scene 2, drag the product to the centre and scale it up.
3. Play: the product travels from its scene 1 pose to its scene 2 pose.
4. On scene 2, drag its keyframe marker to about 30% so it arrives early and then holds its place while the copy reads.

#Ease

Ease shapes how a layer travels between two poses: whether it starts slowly, arrives gently, overshoots or bounces. It is an optional component: add it from + Add Component (it sits under Timing, last in the list) on any media, gradient or vector layer. Without it the move is Auto. Close the Ease card and the layer goes back to Auto; nothing else about its keyframes changes. A layer that already has a curve, from an older project, a recipe or the scene bar, shows its Ease card by itself.

Inside the card the curve menu stays dimmed until the layer has two different poses, because with nothing to travel there is nothing to shape, and a short note says how to make a move.

You can also set it from the scene bars: click a keyframe marker to see the eased range drawn over the bar, then click the dot above it to open the same menu. Picking a curve there adds the Ease card; picking Auto there takes it away again.

The options

Auto is the default: an unshaped, linear join. The other curves come in families:

• Basic: Linear, Smooth, Ease in, Ease out, Dramatic, Slow start and Slow finish.
• Sine, Quad, Quart, Quint and Circ in and out variants, from gentle to strong.
• Expo in-out for a very fast middle.
• Back curves overshoot slightly and come back.
• Elastic curves spring past the pose and wobble into it.
• Bounce curves land like a dropped ball.

Particle ease

On a particle Vector, the Ease card also has a Particle ease menu under the layer's own curve (labelled Layer ease there). It is a different curve for a different job: it shapes how the particles' own values change across the scene, when a Motion force, the Count or the Fill has a different value at the start and the end. It offers Default (physics cubic) and the Material 3 curves, and a saved curve that is not one of them shows as Custom curve and is kept. While nothing on the particles ramps it shows no effect. On linked scenes the first scene's Particle ease drives the chain.

It used to be the Easing menu of the Motion FX card, then part of the Keyframes card; it now lives in Ease, beside the other timing control. Closing Ease on a particle layer resets it to Default too.

Which scene's Ease applies

Each scene has its own Ease, and it shapes the motion that happens on that scene: from the previous cut to this scene's keyframe, and from the keyframe to the next cut. The last scene of a chain also settles from its keyframe to the end. So to change how a layer arrives on scene 2, set scene 2's Ease.

Tips

• Ease out and Slow finish suit most arrivals: fast in, gentle landing.
• Keep Elastic and Bounce for one element at a time. Several layers bouncing at once reads as noise.
• Ease works with the keyframe position. A keyframe near the start of the scene with an Ease out gives a quick arrival and a long settle.

#Finish

Finish sits at the bottom of the canvas panel and applies to the whole scene, whatever kind of layer is selected. It has two settings, Hold and Perfect loop. When a particle layer is selected it also shows Preview at keyframe.

Preview at keyframe is on by default. It parks the paused canvas on this scene's keyframe, so you see the shape at its settled pose while you edit. It changes nothing in playback or export, and your choice is remembered in this browser rather than saved in the project.

#Hold

Hold adds time to the end of the scene after the animation has finished. The keyframes and Ease play out as before, then the layout stays in its final pose for the extra time while particles keep moving. That gives the viewer time to read the offer without the last frame freezing.

• The slider runs from 0 to 10 seconds in steps of 0.1, and starts at 0. Click the number to type up to 20 seconds; the scene as a whole can be at most 30 seconds.
• Raising Hold makes the scene longer. The animation window before it is unchanged, so every keyframe keeps its time in seconds. This is the one length change that does not keep keyframes at their percentage.
• The hold shows as a hatched tail on the scene's bar, and the keyframe marker cannot be dragged into it.
• The Time field includes the hold. If you shorten the scene below the hold, the hold is shortened to fit.
• String expressions finish at the end of the animation and hold their final value through the Hold.

Worked example

A 6 second 1:1 ad: 4 seconds of movement, then 2 seconds to read the price.

1. Build the move on a 4 second scene.
2. Set Hold to 2. The scene becomes 6 seconds and the move still takes the first 4.
3. With a particle layer, the field keeps drifting through those 2 seconds, so the ad does not look paused.

#Perfect loop

Perfect loop ∞ is an on and off switch in Finish. It makes the scene wrap so the last frame matches the first, which is what you want for any placement that repeats: stories, in-feed video and display banners. It is off by default.

• Particles and animated gradients both cycle, and the Hold time is part of the loop.
• On particles, Gravity and Spring are switched off while it is on, because a fall or a spring cannot return to where it started. Forces that cannot loop are marked ∞ off, and the one-shot Bounce motion does not repeat.
• On a linked chain, switching it on or off does so for every scene in the chain. After the last scene's Hold, that scene's Ease carries the particles, pose and shape back to the first scene, so the wrap is a smooth move rather than a jump.
• It is not the same as the loop button in the playback controls, which only changes how the preview plays.

The loop button

The button beside Play sets how the preview plays. Each click steps to the next mode, and hovering it names the one it is in (on an iPad, each tap names the mode it moves to):

• Off (the default for new projects) plays the timeline once and stops.
• Normal timeline plays the whole timeline and starts again.
• Active scene repeats the scene you are on.
• Ping pong timeline plays the timeline forwards, then backwards, and repeats.
• Ping pong active scene does the same for the scene you are on.

After Ping pong active scene the button goes back to Off. With Off, a scene set to Perfect loop still loops, because it is made to. The project remembers the mode. The loop button only changes the preview: how many times a video repeats is Export loops.

Tips

• For a clean loop, keep the first and last pose close, or let the last scene's Ease do the return with a gentle curve such as Sine in-out.
• Check the loop by setting the loop button to Active scene and watching the join.