May 22, 2011

COLOR CODED KEYS

Thank the Lord. How many long suffering nights have I searched for this? Okay, to be honest maybe no more than two but still, I've always wanted to know how to do this.

I suck at MEL scripting or any kind of scripting for that matter. I could use the excuse I just don't have the patience for it but it's probably because I'm too lazy to learn it.

Aaaanyway, here is the MEL script to change the color of a key tick in the timeline in MayLinka. Wait for it...

keyframe -time `currentTime -q` -tds 1;

That's it. Add it to a shelf. After that just set a key, run the command, and then go to Window > Settings/Preferences > Color Settings, go to the Animation bar and change the Time Slider Tick Special color to whatever you want.

What a time to live.

**UPDATE**
Since my good friend JP Rhinemiller over at Animators Resource posted a link to this, I've received some requests to demonstrate how to change the color of the key ticks. It's super simple. Hopefully these pics help.

After you have run the script in the Script Editor...
Go to Window> Settings/Preferences> Color Settings (like this)















A new window will pop up. You'll want to click on Animation under the General tab. Look for Time Slider tick special. (like this)














It is set to green by default. Change it to any color you like. Blue starts with 'B' like BREAKDOWN so that's why I chose that color.

As always, I hope this helps!

Peace!!!

7 comments:

Lord :p said...

Thank you! It will be helpfull!

Oscar said...

Can you post a video explain?

I run the command and change color in prefs but another key change to green color!
What about that?

Phillip Hall said...

Hello Oscar. I have updated this post with a couple of pics with some additional instruction. Hopefully that will help you out. Let me know if you're still running into problems and I'll try to help you out.

Cheers!

JP said...

You Da Man Phil

Josh Bowman said...

Hi Phillip,

Stumbled across your blog in my travels and thought I'd point you to a script i made a few years ago that basically does the same thing but gives you all the options in one place.

http://www.j3d.com.au/scripts/jbColourKeys.mel

Cheers,
Josh

Phillip Hall said...

Wow! Thanks Josh. I'll definitely check it out. Thanks again. Cheers!

Village Talkies said...

Great with detailed information. It is really very helpful for us.
Village Talkies a top-quality professional corporate video production company in Bangalore and also best explainer video company in Bangalore & animation video makers in Bangalore, Chennai, India & Maryland, Baltimore, USA provides Corporate & Brand films, Promotional, Marketing videos & Training videos, Product demo videos, Employee videos, Product video explainers, eLearning videos, 2d Animation, 3d Animation, Motion Graphics, Whiteboard Explainer videos Client Testimonial Videos, Video Presentation and more for all start-ups, industries, and corporate companies. From scripting to corporate video production services, explainer & 3d, 2d animation video production , our solutions are customized to your budget, timeline, and to meet the company goals and objectives.
As a best video production company in Bangalore, we produce quality and creative videos to our clients.