Onion Skinning

Onion Skinning show ghosts of the keyframes before and after the current frame allowing animators to make decisions in the animation sequence.

The main switch to show/hide Onion Skinning is in the Viewport Overlays, but Grease Pencil Onion Skinning is per-layer and the visibility can be toggle in the layer list. See 2D Layers for more information.

../../_images/grease-pencil_properties_onion-skinning_panel.png

Onion Skinning panel.

Options

Mode
Keyframes:

Shows Keyframes in the range determined by the Before/After settings.

Frames:

Shows Frames in the range determined by the Before/After settings.

Selected:

Shows only on the manually selected keyframes in the Dope Sheet.

Opacity

Control the opacity of the ghost frames.

Filter by Type

Filters what type of frames to show in the Onion Skinning range.

Keyframes Before/After

Sets how many frames or keyframes, depending on the Mode, to show before and after the current frame.

Custom Colors

Before/After

Color to use before and after the current frame on ghost frames.

Display

View in Render

Show the onion skinning in final render image e.g. for a motion blur effect.

Fade

Opacity of the ghosts frames decrease the further away from the current frame.

Show Start Frame

Help working on loop animations showing the first keyframe/frame as ghost when you are on the last frame of your animation.

../../_images/grease-pencil_properties_onion-skinning_example.png

An example of Onion Skinning activated.