Simple or Advanced timeline?
Two ways to see the same animation. Which one to pick, and how to switch without losing anything.
StykAnimate has two ways to look at the same animation: Simple, a row of frame cards like Pivot, and Advanced, every layer on its own row of keys. This page helps you pick one and shows that switching never changes your work.
- Simple: one card per frame of the whole scene. Easy, and familiar from Pivot.
- Advanced (the default): each layer has its own keys, so characters can have their own timing.
- Switch with Simple | Advanced at the left of the timeline header. It’s the same animation; nothing is lost or changed.
Same animation, two views
Here Blue changes pose on frames 1, 7, 13 and 19, and Red only on frames 1 and 10. Switch between the views and compare.
- Click Advanced in the timeline header.
- Click a cell in Red’s row, inside its grey bar.
- Press A: a key only on Red’s row.
- Click Simple. A new card is there.
- Press Space to play: nothing was lost.
Point at the playground first, so the keys go to it and not to the page.
In Simple you see five cards: a card starts wherever any layer has a key, so Red’s key on frame 10 makes a card even though Blue is holding. In Advanced you see why: each row shows its own keys, holds and tweens.
Which one should you use?
| You want to… | Simple | Advanced |
|---|---|---|
| Animate one character, pose by pose | Best: add a card, pose, repeat. | Works too. |
| See every pose as a picture | Yes: thumbnails of the whole scene. | No thumbnails; dots on rows. |
| Make a pose last longer | Drag the bar under its card. | Drag the end of its bar, or Shift+A. |
| Make one character wait while another moves | No: card edits change the whole scene. | Yes: select only that character’s row. |
| Paste frames | Inserts them and pushes later frames along. | Replaces the frames on the selected rows. |
| Delete | Removes the frames and their time. | Removes keys; the time stays (Shift+F5 removes time). |
A good habit: build the poses in Simple, then switch to Advanced to fine-tune the timing of each character.
Simple works like Pivot’s frame strip: A adds a frame after the current one, and each card’s bar is how long it lasts. Pivot animations you open look the same in both views.
Switch views
- Let go of anything you are dragging on the stage or the timeline.
- Click Simple or Advanced at the left of the timeline header. The timeline changes at once; the stage stays the same.
- Check the playhead. In Simple, the card that contains the current frame is selected.
To start new projects in the other view, open Settings → Interface → Timeline and choose Simple or Advanced.
Switching doesn’t merge layers, change easing or the frame rate, or add a step to undo. Locks, hidden layers and layer order work the same in both views.
Shared controls
Both views share the timeline header: Add frame, the play buttons, loop, the time, the frame rate, the zoom slider, onion skin and audio. These keys work in both:
Auto key (K) is only in the Advanced view. The frame rate sets how fast frames play: 24 frames at 24 fps take one second in either view.
Questions
I switched and now there are more cards than before.
Each key on any layer starts a card, including keys you added for one character in Advanced. The animation didn’t change; Simple just shows a card at every place something changes.
In Simple, a timing change is blocked.
A layer is locked. Simple edits every layer at once, so unlock it in the Layer list, or make the change in Advanced on the other rows.
Delete did different things in the two views.
It does: Simple deletes frames with their time, Advanced deletes keys and keeps the time. Press Ctrl+Z if you lost something.
Next
Still stuck?
Ask the community, or tell us what’s missing from the docs.