Spline Editor Interface

The Spline Editor Interface has three main working regions; the graph view, tree view and toolbars.

Graph View

The Graph View is the largest region of the interface. It is here that the actual animation spline is displayed for editing. There are two axis in the graph view. The horizontal axis represents time and the vertical axis represents the spline's value.

Tree View

The Tree View provides a mechanism for determining what splines are visible in the graph view. The name of each spline in the project is shown beneath the tool that contains the animated control. The checkboxes beside each name are used to show whether that spline is currently shown in the graph view and whether the spline is enabled for editing.

Toolbar

The Toolbar across the top of the spline editor represents the most common operations applied to a spline, or splines, in the graph view. The various operations represented by the toolbar are all accessible from the graph view's context menu, but the following buttons provide a faster shortcut. The operation of each button is described later in this chapter.

Current Time Indicator

The thin yellow bar that runs vertically through the spline editor represents the current time of the flow. Click-drag on the Current Time Indicator to change the current time.

Status Bar

The Status Bar at the bottom left of the main interface constantly displays information about the position of the mouse pointer along the time and value axis whenever the pointer is over the graph view.