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Editing Cues

Editing cues on the timeline

Cues and all their parameters are described in the Media Cues chapter. This section only covers what is specific to editing a cue on a timeline: the inline parameter editor, the F-key shortcuts, and inline animation.

Quick parameters

Commonly-used parameters are directly accessible in the timeline: opacity, position, rotation, scale, color, etc.

There are two tabs of parameters, which can be switched by clicking on the first line

The F1...F11 keys give a direct access to each of these parameters in a compact mode:

  • F1: Opacity (also called Fade)

  • F2: Cue position on the stage

  • F3: Cue scale. Can be set in % or in pixels.

  • F4: Cue rotation, in degrees + full turns

  • F5: Cue anchor, the rotation center of the cue

  • F6: Cue color

  • F7: Brightness/Contrast/Saturation, for quick color adjustments

  • F8: Cue deformation

  • F9: Texture coordinates offset

  • F10: Texture coordinates scaling

  • F11: Texture coordinates rotation

Opacity has quick-access keys: Numpad0 forces the opacity to 0, Numpad1/ Numpad2/... Numpad9 to 10%/20%/... 90% respectively, and Ctrl-Numpad0 forces the opacity to 100%.

Once in compact mode, click on the left part to return to expanded mode:

In a sense, the F1...F11 compact mode is a fast, keyboard-driven equivalent of "Right click -> Edit all cue parameters"; the F-key shortcuts are specific to timelines.

Inline animation & crossfades

Most cue parameters can be animated on the timeline. This is done by clicking on the stopwatch icon:

Changing an animated value will automatically create a new keyframe.

To delete a keyframe, select it and press Suppr.

Animations can be used to create transitions between cues. In this case, it is particularly handy to know common keyboard shortcuts:

  • Select the cue, the press O (go to end of selection; opposite key is I)

  • Press T to jump back 1 sec before (opposite key is Y; there are also Ctrl and Alt variants).

  • Drop the new media on layer 2. It will then start one second before the end of the other cue.

  • Press Shift-F1. This will add an opacity keyframe -- and thus create an animation.

  • Press 0 to set this keyframe to full transparency

  • Press Y to jump to the end of the crossfade

  • Press Ctrl-0 to set this keyframe to full opacity

This will give you a 1 second crossfade: