Frames & the timeline
A frame is one drawing in your animation. Play them in order, quickly, and they become motion. The frames strip at the bottom of the screen is where you manage them.
Working with frames
- Add a frame: tap + in the frames strip. A new, blank frame appears after the current one. Touch and hold the + to switch it between Add frame and Duplicate last frame: the button remembers your choice (and changes its icon), so you can keep one-tapping to duplicate as you animate.
- Move between frames: tap a frame in the strip to edit it.
- Duplicate a frame: make a copy, then change it a little. This is the fastest way to animate, you are not redrawing everything each time.
- Copy and paste a frame: touch and hold a frame and choose Copy. A paste button then appears next to the + in the frames strip; tap it to drop that frame in at the end. Handy for reusing a pose later in the timeline.
- Reorder frames: drag them into a new order.
- Delete a frame: remove one you do not want.
Every frame shares the same layers.
Holds (making a frame last longer)
Sometimes you want a drawing to stay on screen for a beat, a pause, a held pose. Instead of copying the same drawing many times, you can give a frame a longer exposure so it holds for more of a second. This keeps your project small and easy to edit.
A good way to work
- Draw your first frame.
- Turn on onion skin so you can see the previous frame as a ghost.
- Duplicate the frame (or add a new one) and change the drawing a little.
- Repeat. Check your progress with Play often.
Start rough
Block out the big movements with a few frames first (a ball at the bottom, middle, and top). Once the motion feels right, go back and add frames in between to smooth it out.
There is a generous limit on frames per project, plenty for long animations.