Channels

Channels Region

The Channels region.

The channels region is used to select and manage the curves for the Graph editor. This part shows the objects and their animation data hierarchy each as headers. Each level can be expanded/collapsed by the small arrow to the left of its header.

• Scenes, Objects (dark blue)
• Actions, Shape keys, etc. (light blue)
• Groups (green)
• Channels (gray)

Controls

On the headers, there are toggles to control channel’s setting:

Pin (pin icon)

Make the channel always visible regardless of the current selection (Graph editor only).

Hide (eye icon)

Hides the channel(s)/curve (Graph editor only).

Modifiers (wrench icon)

Deactivates the F-curve modifiers of the selected curve or all curves in the channel.

Mute (speaker icon)

Deactivates the channel/curve.

Lock (padlock icon) Tab

Toggle channel/curve from being editable. Selected channels can be locked by pressing Tab.

Note

In the Dope Sheet this is also working inside the NLA, but that it does not prevent edition of the underlying F-curve.

Selecting

• Select channel (text in white/black): LMB
• Multi Select/Deselect: Shift-LMB
• Toggle Select All: A
• Box Select: (LMB drag) or B (LMB drag)
• Box Deselect: (Shift-LMB drag) or B (Shift-LMB drag)
• Select all keyframes in the channel: double LMB on a channel header.

Editing

• Rename: Ctrl-LMB
• Delete selected: X or Delete
• Lock selected: Tab
• Make only selected visible: V
• Enable Mute Lock selected: Shift-Ctrl-W
• Disable Mute Lock selected: Alt-W
• Toggle Mute Lock selected: Shift-W

Sliders

The Action editor showing sliders.

On channels headers you can have another column with number fields or sliders, allowing you to change the value on the current keyframes, or to add new keyframes. See View Menu for how to show these sliders.

Menu

Delete Channels X

Deletes the whole channel from the current action (i.e. unlink the underlying F-curve data-block from this action data-block).

Warning

The X shortcut is area-dependent: if you use it in the left list part, it will delete the selected channels, whereas if you use it in the main area, it will delete the selected keyframes.

Un/Group Channels Ctrl-G, Alt-G

Un/Groups the selected channels into a collection that can be renamed by double clicking on the group name. For example, this helps to group channels that relate a part of an armature to keep the editor more organized.

Settings Toggle/Enable/Disable, Shift-W, Shift-Ctrl-W, Alt-W

Enable/disable a channel’s setting (selected in the menu that pops up).

Lock, Mute

Toggle Channel Editability Tab

Locks or unlocks a channel for editing.

Extrapolation Mode

Change the extrapolation between selected keyframes.

Expand Channels, Collapse Channels NumpadPlus, NumpadMinus

Expands or collapses selected channels.

Move…

This allows you to move top-level channels up/down Shift-PageUp, Shift-PageDown, or directly to the top/bottom Shift-Ctrl-PageUp, Shift-Ctrl-PageDown.

Revive Disabled F-Curves

Clears “disabled” tag from all F-curves to get broken F-curves working again.