{"id":1709,"date":"2025-02-14T20:13:15","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T20:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/demoblogs.ecuad.camrose\/?page_id=1709"},"modified":"2025-02-14T20:13:15","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T20:13:15","slug":"hold-keyframe-manual-frame-by-frame-animation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/mrose\/resources\/digital-animation-methods-and-software\/after-effects\/keyframe-animation-with-after-effects\/hold-keyframe-manual-frame-by-frame-animation\/","title":{"rendered":"Hold Keyframe &amp; Manual Frame-by-Frame Animation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After Effects has an interesting animation option, where you can manually animate an object\/layer or footage in a frame-by-frame fashion, similar to the way that you would animate an object under a camera and photograph successive movements frame-by-frame. To do this, you will set a Hold keyframe at a point in the Timeline, move along a couple of frames, and then move the object\/layer in the Composition Window. By repeating the action and forging ahead, moving along in the Timeline and progressing in the Composition Window, you will create a movement phrase, where you will set all of the keys and in-between positions yourself. In this case, After Effects will not interpolate the moves between keyframes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To begin, follow the steps above to set an initial keyframe on the Timeline; for example, to animate the Position of an object, set a keyframe at Frame 0 on the layer.&nbsp; After Effects will apply a default Linear keyframe, with a diamond-shape icon on the Timeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Locate the Linear keyframe icon with your mouse, context-click on the keyframe (right-click or Mac control-click) and choose Toggle Hold Keyframe.&nbsp; By doing this, you will remove After Effects&#8217; interpolation between keyframes.&nbsp; The diamond-shape keyframe icon should then turn into a part-diamond, part-square shape (diamond on the left-side, square on the right-side).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From now on, After Effects will not figure out the in-betweens for you; you will be able to set the calibrations yourself, just as you would with drawn or object animation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Go to the next point where you want to set a keyframe in the Timeline. If you would like to animate an object\/layer with double-frames, an easy way to move forward is to simply click on the Page Down Key in the numeric keypad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Page Down Key = Moves the Time Marker forward in the Timeline by 1 frame<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Page Up Key = Moves the Time Marker backward in the Timeline by 1 frame<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Again, using Position animation as an example, once you have placed the Time Marker where you want it in the Timeline, you can use the Selection Tool to move the object\/layer in the Composition Window, or adjust the x-axis and y-axis coordinates of the object\/layer in the Position section of the layer&#8217;s Transform options.&nbsp; By doing this, you will set another Hold keyframe in the Timeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ecuad.ca\/~mrose\/blog_resource_images\/keyframes\/ae_hold.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A Hold Keyframe is signified by a square-shape in the Timeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>N. B.<\/strong>&nbsp;Using this frame-by-frame animation method, you do not have to click the &#8220;add keyframe&#8221; icon to set additional keyframes; After Effects will do it for you. All that you have to worry about is to go to a new position in the Timeline &#8212; i.e., click the Page Down Key twice to move forward two frames &#8212; and then change the position of the layer\/footage&nbsp;by either moving the object in the Composition Window or adjusting the Position&#8217;s x- and y-coordinates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After each move, After Effects will place an [x] in the Composition Window, to mark the calibration you have just made, and connect the marks with a line, to indicate a motion path.&nbsp; These are reference marks and will not appear in the project, but you will probably find the marks useful, as you compose the object&#8217;s motion path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After Effects has an interesting animation option, where you can manually animate an object\/layer or footage in a frame-by-frame fashion, similar to the way that you would animate an object under a camera and photograph successive movements frame-by-frame. To do this, you will set a Hold keyframe at a point in the Timeline, move along [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"parent":1705,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1709","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/mrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/mrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/mrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/mrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/mrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/mrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4953,"href":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/mrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1709\/revisions\/4953"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/mrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/mrose\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}