Hello and welcome to this Keystone tutorial for After Effects.
Keystone is an extension that allows you to manipulate keyframes easily and especially
to perform basic tasks that are not available by default in After Effects.
As you will see, its easy-to-read icon-based interface makes it a tool that fits perfectly
into the daily workflow in After Effects.
The principle of use for
all features is very simple: simply select some keyframes,
then click on the icon of your choice.
For example the first section is about duplicating and flipping keyframes.
So I simply select these keyframes and I click on "duplicate".
The duplication is done at the CTI level on the first keyframe of the group,
and if you're not familiar with the acronym CTI, it stands for "Current Time Indicator".
The second option allows you to duplicate and flip at the same time.
This is ideal for quickly creating outro animations.
The third option allows you to flip the keyframes.
As you can see, the relative offset of the keyframes
between the different properties is preserved.
I can also flip the keyframes of each property individually using the ALT hotkey.
So I press ALT and then click on the icon.
Now I select keyframes on multiple layers and click on the icon.
As you can see, by default the keyframes are grouped by layer.
To keep the keyframe offset I need to use the SHIFT hotkey.
So there are 3 different modes that correspond to the 3 ways of grouping keyframes.
These modes are very important because they affect all of the functions of Keystone.
They allow you to cover all the situations you may encounter in your projects.
To summarize: By default, with a simple click the keyframes are grouped by layer.
Then ALT / click groups keyframes by property.
And finally SHIFT / click groups selected
keyframes all together even if they are on multiple layers.
The next section is about keyframe alignment.
Again it is very simple, I select a group of keyframes, click on the first icon and
my keyframes are automatically aligned to the CTI.
The hotkeys still apply here: If I want to align
all the properties to the CTI, I simply press ALT and click.
I can also keep the keyframes offset on multiple layers.
I just undo a couple times and now I press SHIFT and click.
The second option is almost identical but this time
the alignment is done on the last keyframe of the group.
The next two options align the keyframes to
the in point or the out point of the respective layers.
I can align the keyframes of each layer to their in point.
I also can align the keyframes of each property
individually to their layer out point by pressing ALT and click.
However, of course, on both of these options I can’t use the SHIFT hotkey to group the
keyframes all together because each layer has its own in point and out point.
The next part allows you to stagger keyframes between them.
For these functions I have to indicate a value and choose a unit between "frames" and "seconds".
For this example I choose 10 frames, I select these keyframes, then I click on the first icon.
As before, by default Keystone has grouped the keyframes by layer.
If I want to stagger the keyframes for each property I do ALT / click.
As the icon indicates, this first option creates descending staggers.
On the contrary, this button creates ascending
staggers while this one creates randomized staggers.
The last feature is a little different as it allows you
to create fixed intervals between consecutive keyframes.
For this example, I want to have 1 second between each of my keyframes.
So I change the value and the unit, I select my keyframes and click on the icon.
I now have exactly 1 second between each keyframe.
Now, with the stretch features we can slow down or speed up the animations concerned.
Like the stagger option, we have to indicate
a value and choose a unit between "%", "frames" or "seconds".
If you choose "%", it works exactly like the "stretch" option for layers except it only
affects the selected keyframes and not the layers themselves.
100% is the current state of the keyframe group and nothing happens if I click on the icons.
If I set 200%, it will double the length of the keyframes and thus slow down the animation.
If I want to speed up the animation, I indicate a value lower than 100%, for example 40%.
If I use the SHIFT / click shortcut, this will stretch the selected keyframes all together.
If I want to affect each property individually, I use the ALT + click shortcut.
If I undo it, you can notice that the first keyframe
of each property remains in the same place.
You can also specify a fixed value with the units "frames" and "seconds".
For example, I want this group of keyframes to last precisely 4 seconds.
So I indicate 4, change the unit and click on the first button.
If I press ALT, each property group is 4 seconds long.
In each case, the stretch starts at the first keyframe of the selected keyframe groups.
On the second button the stretch is done from the last keyframe.
This is very useful for outro animations.
And finally the last button allows you to stretch the selected keyframes from the CTI.
Depending on the values used, stretching in After Effects can insert keyframes between frames.
If I zoom on the timeline, you can see that these keyframes are between two frames.
This is something I personally don't like,
but fortunately we can correct it very easily with Keystone.
I just need to select the keyframes, click on this button
and they will be automatically aligned to the nearest frame.
The following button is used to set a constant speed between two keyframes.
For example, in this scene, the layer scale increases rapidly between the first two keyframes,
then the increase slows down and ends with
another rapid increase between the last two keyframes.
Now I want to flatten the curve between the two middle keyframes
because this "S" curve is causing a strange animation.
I can try to do it by hand but it takes a long time and it’s not perfect.
On top of that I would have to repeat this whole process for each keyframe change.
So it's not a viable solution when we have to manage several animations of this type.
Keystone solves this problem extremely easily.
All I have to do is select the two keyframes, click on the icon and that's it!
The best part is once I've used this feature, Keystone will keep this constant speed between
these two keyframes if I use another feature of the extension.
For example, if I decide to align the last two keyframes
on the layer out point, the constant speed is still there.
This may seem quite normal to you and yet
it’s not the default behavior of After Effects at all.
If I move the keyframes manually you can see
this destroys the flattened curve and creates an “S” curve.
So I apply the constant speed option again
and this time I use the shifting options in Keystone.
Whatever the direction, the curve is perfectly preserved,
it's a real time saver and much more efficient than After Effects.
Generally speaking, the Keystone features retain
the easing of existing keyframes better than After Effects.
Look at this example: There are 3 times the same curve.
The first curve will be used as a template.
The second curve will be modified only with the tools available by default in After Effects
and finally the 3rd curve will be modified with Keystone only.
On the second curve I move this keyframe 20 frames to the left,
then the next keyframe 20 frames to the right.
You can see immediately that the easing of the keyframes is completely destroyed and
the global result is very far from the original curve.
I now reproduce these transformations on the 3rd curve with Keystone.
I shift this keyframe 20 frames to the left with the shifting tool, then this keyframe
20 frames to the right with the alignment tool for example.
It is obvious that the overall curve is much better maintained
with Keystone tools than with After Effects.
Next, you can copy and paste keyframes from one layer
to other layers with options that After Effects doesn’t offer.
In this example, I have several layers slightly offset from each other.
They have the same animation and the same keyframes.
I want to extend this animation and to do so I randomly create two other keyframes.
By default in After Effects to duplicate this animation on the other layers I have no other
choice than to do a copy and paste.
But the keyframes end up aligned on the CTI and then we have to move them manually…
Which is very annoying and time consuming.
With Keystone we can simply Copy them, click on "in point",
then select the other layers and finally, click on "Paste".
The keyframes are automatically pasted based on the in point of their respective layers,
which makes things much easier and saves a lot of time!
In this kind of situation, it is also impractical
to update the animation on all the layers at the same time.
For example, if I decide to move this keyframe
and copy and paste it to the other layers, it keeps the old keys...
I undo this action and this time I use the shortcut CTRL + click
to ask Keystone to update the existing animations.
As you can see, it works perfectly in this example.
Note that this functionality is based on the index of the keyframes.
So if for some reason there are not the same number of keyframes on the layers, this feature
may not work properly.
The last feature of Keystone allows you to automatically
remove keyframes that are in-between other selected keyframes.
This can happen in a lot of situations.
In this example I select these few keyframes,
stretch to 200% and I end up with keyframes in-between.
I just click on this icon and that's it!
This tutorial of Keystone is now over.
I hope you enjoyed it and don't hesitate to contact me if you want more information or
if you have any ideas for a future update!