

The purple dots are the keyframes and the short lines are the tangents which indicate the direction of the curve at each keyframe. The hand animation shows what this will look like on your model. Tip: Where the curve is close to horizontal that is where the object is moving slowly. Where the curve is steep there is a lot of movement or speed.

If the curve is flat there is no movement. Pose 2 -The Mannequin is a handy one-stop area where you can select the body part you wish to move to create your animation. The "plus" sign buttons reveals the X/Y/Z "Translation" manipulator for moving body parts to a new location (see the section below on "Creating a Pose" for more detail). The circular arrow buttons reveal the ball-shaped "Rotation" manipulator to turn that body part in a particular direction. If you aren't sure which body part a button manipulates, hover over it with your mouse and the name will appear in the upper left of your screen. Click & Hold the colored portion of the manipulator to move it in that direction. When you make any adjustment, this automatically sets a keyframe recording your change (unless you turn off Automatic Keying by clicking the large key icon on the toolbar (see figure 1, item "3") or pressing "K" on your keyboard). See the green HUD (fig 1, item 5) to see its status. Tip: You can undo accidental changes using Ctrl-Z.
