Ability to mute Keyframes

[SteveKirby]

In C4D you can 'mute' keyframes - essentially this acts like deleting the keyframe except that a dummy 'reference' key is left there, perhaps greyed out, that stores the value(s) and interpolations it had before it was muted. Keyframes to either side behave exactly as if it was not there, until it is un-muted.

[DanieleBonazza]

I had the same idea. It would be very useful!!!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I came here to request the same. Seems simple enough but incredibly useful 🙂

[marcorabellini]

A switch to mute the animation temporarily so that I don't have to remove or move keyframes. I usually need this with the Opacity. Sometimes I need to see where thing are but if they are at 0% Opacity I need to move or remove the keyframes in order to see it. If there was a mute button I wouldn't have to do that.

[marcorabellini]

Also for video layers in Premiere please.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Great idea

[Michael Rogowski]

You could just add an expression to the property to set it to 100 (literally just alt click it and type 100). it will ignore all keyframes and force the opacity to 100 until you removed it.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

hey guys, I just found a way to do this. It's not so good but does the trick. just type the value where you want the property to freeze in expressions. It will automatically disable the keyframes and pick the value from the expression.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I've always really wanted this feature. Would also make something like moving an object that already has its position animated much easier.

Right now, you have to select all position keyframes, put the playhead on one of the keyframes, then move the object.

With this new feature, you could just "mute" the position animation, drag the object to where you want, then "unmute" the position property.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Mute/deactivate the keyframes of a specific parameter, ie. the position parameter of a certain layer. The keyframes would still exist, and possibly still be visible in the timeline, but they don't affect the composition while muted.

[Ludwig Tomaschko]

This would be awesome.

In the meantime you can add a value to the expression that overrides your keys.
But the problem is, if you have keyframes AND expressions on a layer,
you first have to override the expression, with a value at the end of the code.

This will get quite laborious!

[Fred Miller]

This would be super helpful!

[Shorts & Tales]

Quite often when working with After Effects, especially character animation work, I will need to move a bunch of keyframes further away in the timeline so that I can add in an additional pose for example. This is made incredibly difficult as any new keyframe information that is added will try to move to the animation that has been moved further in the timeline. It would be incredibly useful to be able to select the keyframes and temporarily disable them so that you can focus on the new section of animation required then reenable the keyframes when the additional poses are worked out.

[andykiernan]

Definitely! Something like the button that turns on off an expression

[coen bouman]

Oh yeah, have been wishing for this on many occasions!

[just.emma]

Couldn't you use Toggle Hold Keyframe?

Often, character animators work pose to pose with hold frames to avoid those issues. Here's a good video demonstrating this workflow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wwH1Vahu7M

[truchan_milo]

duplicate layer, delete keyframes, reset all, work on part and than copy it to base layer.

nut still, button for keyframes would be useful also as a option for other things as well.

[zulfub20426787]

Can you add a button to disable keyframes without deleting them

[Warren Heaton]

As Emma suggested, add a Hold keyframe prior to the set of keyframes that you're moving in the Timeline.

That said, it would be helpful to have an eyeball for each property that can be enabled and disabled, but to disable the keyframes for the entire layer Time Span without removing the keyframe - not to do something that Keyframe Interpolation already allows for.

[SteveKirby]

Just jumping back in here to say that a lot of the comments discuss ways to mute ALL the keyframes on a property, but that's not what I'm asking for. My suggestion is the ability to mute, say, the third and fourth keyframes ONLY. The interpolation between the second and fifth keyframes then behaves as if I had deleted the two I muted. But I can re-enable them at any time. 

[Warren Heaton]

@SteveKirby 

Thanks for the clarification, Steve.

[Rick Gerard]

My goofy workaround for this. Add a Checkbox Control to the layer. Pick the property you want to mute and add this expression;

//For any property with one or more keyframes
ctrl = effect("Checkbox Control")("Checkbox");
if(ctrl == 0)
	key(1)value;

This will return the value of the first keyframe and mute all others when you click the checkbox. I have actually used this on occasion.

[coen bouman]

That's a nice work around Rick. I'm all with Steve here In that I don't want to mute the entire property but a selection of keyframes.  I don't think Cinema has just that, but it does have animation layers. (A sort of opacity layer/audio levels of keyframe strenght where you can mute or lower ceratin regions of your animation.) Just muting keys would be fine though 🙂