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Unlocked points are created when additional points are added to the motion path while in Insert and Modify modes. These points are used to adjust the overall shape of the motion path, without directly affecting the timing of the motion. This means you can add whatever unlocked points you want to reshape a motion path, without that having any effect on the timing of the animation on that path.
This makes it vastly easier to fine-tune a motion path spatially after you’ve perfected the timing of the animation temporally.
Unlocked points do not have corresponding points on the path’s Displacement spline. They appear in the viewer as smaller, solid square points.
1 Select a motion path spline by using the Tab key to cycle controls until the path is selected.
2 To insert points along a path, click the Insert and Modify button in the toolbar.
3 Click on the path and create two new points: one half-way between the first and the second points, and the other half-way between the second and the third points.
The two points just added are not present in the motion path’s Displacement spline. These are unlocked points, used to shape the motion but unrelated to the timing of the path.
Unlocked points added to the motion path are not displayed on the Displacement spline
You can add unlocked points to the Displacement spline as well. Additional unlocked points in the Spline Editor can be used to make the object’s motion pause briefly.