Timeline

The Timeline is a precision editing tool that helps you control the timing and order of animations and effects in your scenes. It's designed to give you fine-grained control over complex layouts—especially when working with multiple elements or intricate visual sequences.

Use the Timeline when you want to:

• Coordinate multiple animations with specific moments in your script or narration.
• Edit animations and effects with the scene preview frozen at a specific moment.
• Reorder and rename elements for clearer scene organization.
• Create animation chains or visual sequences.

How to access the Timeline

For any given scene in a video, click the Timeline button at the top-right of the script box to access the Timeline.

To switch back to the script view, click the hide Timeline button at the top-right of the script box.

Key capabilities

Visual layer management

• Layers for all elements: Every element in the scene—text, images, shapes, avatars, etc.—appears as a layer.
• Reorder by drag-and-drop: Change the layer order by dragging and dropping the layers on the left side of the Timeline.
• Rename layers: Double-click a layer name to rename it. Press Enter or click out of the text field to confirm the new layer name.
• Group and ungroup layers: Organize related elements for cleaner editing. Hold Shift and click to select multiple layers, then either right-click and select the Group option from the context menu, or use the ⌘/Ctrl + g keyboard shortcut.
  • You can rename both the group and its child elements.
  • You can add animations and effects to the group as a whole.
  • Child elements in a group cannot have their own animations or effects.

Precise timing with scene preview

You can scrub through your scene by dragging the seeker. There are several keyboard shortcuts available for scrubbing through and previewing the scene:

• Nudge playhead:
  • [: This bracket key nudges the playhead back by 1s.
  • ]: This bracket key nudges the playhead forward by 1s.
  • Shift+[: This nudges the playhead back by 0.1s.
  • Shift+]: This nudges the playhead forward by 0.1s.
• Jump to cluster:
  • </>: The angle-bracket key nudges the playhead to the start of the previous/next cluster in the timeline.
• Start and end:
  • J/K: Tapping J will take you to the start of the timeline (0:00) and K will jump you to the end.

Animation and effect control

• Add animations/effects: Move the seeker to the moment you want, then click the plus icon to add.
• Chain animations: Create sequences where one animation starts as another ends.
• Stagger timings: Offset multiple animations to match narration pacing.
• Stack effects: Layer effects on top of each other to create clusters of effects.
• Adjust timing: Drag an animation or effect to change when it starts. Dragging behavior depends on whether or not you hold down the Shift key while dragging the animation or effect. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to adjust timing.
  • Drag withoutOption/Alt: Snaps the trigger to the nearest word in the script and adds the needed delay to match its timeline position.
  • Drag withOption/Alt held: Adjusts the delay relative to its current trigger point—useful for fine-tuning.
  • Adjust timing with keyboard:
    • Opt/Alt + ⬅: This moves the trigger to the previous available existing cluster (a trigger that is already in use).
    • Opt/Alt + ⮕: This moves the trigger to the next available existing cluster (a trigger that is already in use).
    • Shift+Opt/Alt + ⬅: This moves the trigger to the previous word and creates a new trigger cluster.
    • Shift+Opt/Alt + ⮕: This moves the trigger to the next word and creates a new trigger cluster.
• Duration: For animations, drag the right edge to change duration, or use keyboard shortcuts. Effects have a set duration.
  • Ctrl/⌘ + ⬅ / ⮕: This nudges the duration by 0.1s.
  • Shift+Ctrl/⌘ + ⬅ / ⮕: This nudges the duration by 0.01s.
• Delay: While the Timeline with automatically calculate delay, you can also nudge it manually using your keyboard.
  • ⬅/⮕: This nudges the delay by 0.1s.
  • Shift+⬅ / ⮕: This nudges the delay by 0.01s.
• Change animation/effect: Right click on a trigger to edit its animation settings.
• Multi-select edits: Hold Shift and click to select multiple animations or effects. You can:
  • Drag the selection to move all triggers together in time.
  • Drag the right edge of any selected animation to increase its duration. This applies only to animations—effects have fixed durations and won't be affected.
• Zoom in/out: Hold Ctrl and scroll, or pinch on trackpad, for detailed view.