************ Introduction ************ The NLA editor, short for Non-Linear Animation, can manipulate and repurpose :doc:`/animation/actions`, without the tedium of handling keyframes. It is often used to make broad, significant changes to a scene's animation, with relative ease. It can also repurpose, chain together a sequence of motions, and "layered" actions, which make it easier to organize, and version-control your animation. Header ====== View Menu --------- Realtime Updates When transforming NLA-strips the changes to the animation is propagated to other views. Show Control F-Curves Overlays a graph of the NLA-strip's influence on top of the strip. Show Local Markers Shows action-local markers on the strip, this is useful when synchronizing time across strips. Set Preview Range Selecting a preview range by dragging in the NLA Editor. Clear Preview Range Unset the preview range Auto Select Preview Range Automatically select the preview range based on the range of keyframes. .. seealso:: See Timeline's :ref:`timeline-view-menu`. Select Menu ----------- All Select all NLA-strips. None Deselect all NLA-strips. Invert Invert the current selection of NLA-strips. Box Select Select NLA-strips by drawing a box. All NLA-strips that intersects the box will be added to the current selection. Border Axis Range Select NLA-strips by drawing a box. All NLA-strips that intersects the frames of the drawn box will be added to the current selection. Before Current Frame Select all NLA-strips before the current frame. After Current Frame Select all NLA-strips after the current frame. Markers Menu ------------ :doc:`Markers ` are used to denote frames with key points or significant events within an animation. Like with most animation editors, markers are shown at the bottom of the editor. .. figure:: /images/editors_graph-editor_introduction_markers.png Markers in animation editor. For descriptions of the different marker tools, see :ref:`Editing Markers `. Edit Menu --------- Transform Move Move the selected NLA-strips in time or to different NLA-track. Extend Extend the selected NLA-strips. Scale Scale the selected NLA-strips. Snap Current Frame Move the start of selected NLA-strips to the current frame. Nearest Frame Move the start of the selected NLA-strips to the nearest frame. Nearest Second Move the start of the selected NLA-strips to the nearest second. Nearest Marker Move the start of the selected NLA-strips to the nearest marker. Duplicate Make a copy of the selected NLA-strips. Linked Duplicate Make a shallow copy of the selected NLA-strips. Split Strips NLA-Split the selected strips into two NLA-strips. The split happens at the current frame. Delete Strips Delete selected NLA-Strips. Toggle Muting Mute or unmute the selected NLA-strips. Muted NLA-strips will not influence the animation. Apply Scale Apply the scale of the selected NLA-strips to their referenced Actions. Clear Scale Reset the scaling of the selected NLA-strips Sync Action Length Synchronize the length of the action to the length used in the NLA-strip. Make Single User This tool ensures that none of the selected strips use an action which is also used by any other strips. Swap Strips Swap the order of the selected NLA-strips in their NLA-track. Move Strips Up Move selected NLA-strips a track up if there is room. Move Strips Down Move selected NLA-strips a track down if there is room. Track Ordering To Top Move selected track to the top of the tracks. Up Move selected track one track up. Down Move selected track one track down. To Bottom Move selected tracks to the bottom of the tracks. Remove Empty Animation Data Remove Animation Data from selected objects when they don't contain any animation. Start Editing Stashed Action It will enter and exit Tweak Mode as usual, but will also make sure that the action can be edited in isolation (by flagging the NLA track that the action strip comes from as being "solo"). This is useful for editing stashed actions, without the rest of the NLA Stack interfering. Start Tweaking Strips Actions The contents of Action strips can be edited, but you must be in *Tweak Mode* to do so. The keyframes of the action can then be edited in the Dope Sheet. Add --- Add Action strip Add an NLA-strip referencing an Action to the active track. Add Transition Add an NLA-strip to create a transition between a selection of two adjacent NLA-strips. Add Sound Strip Add an NLA-strip controlling when the Speaker object plays its sound clip. Add Meta-Strip Group selected NLA-strips into a meta strip. A meta strip will group the selected NLA-strips of the same NLA-track. Remove Meta-Strip Ungroup selected Meta strips. Add Tracks Add a new NLA-Track on top of the selected object. Add Track Above Selected Add a new NLA-Track just above the selected NLA-track. Include Selected Objects Let the selected objects appear in the NLA Editor. This is done by adding an empty animation data object to the selected object.