Using the Timeline tool window

Animating the Threshold parameter is a nice addition, but the animation now falls apart into two separate parts. It would be better to start the zoom earlier, but how do we do this?

The most powerful way to edit your animations is the Timeline tool window. It shows all parameters that can be animated, together with an overview of the range of frames over which they are animated.

		Click the Timeline button on the animation bar to open the Timeline tool window.
		Click the Reset View button in the toolbar to make sure the complete animation fits in the window.

On the left side, the Timeline tool window shows a tree view of all parameters in the fractal, grouped by layer and category. On the right, the animated range of each category and parameter is shown.

In this case, the animated range for both the entire fractal and the Background layer ranges from frame 1 to 200. The location is animated from frame 101 to frame 200, and the outside coloring algorithm is animated from frame 1 to 120. Click on a category in the tree or on a range bar to see the exact begin and end frames.

• Expand the Location and Outside categories to see the individual parameters that form the animated range of each category. Note how you can select an animation key to edit it individually.
• Move the mouse cursor over the left-hand end of the range bar of the Location category until it changes into a resize cursor. Drag the left end to frame 30. (You can also enter 30 into the Begin Frame input box at the bottom while the Location category is selected.)

Close the Timeline tool window and preview the animation to see the effect of this change. Note how the fractal already begins zooming at frame 30. This is good, but maybe it would be even better if the zoom would start slower. We can accomplish this by inserting additional animation keys somewhere between frame 30 and frame 200.

• Move the time slider to frame 100 and set Animate mode to on.
• Zoom out the fractal, and position it such that it is only slightly zoomed in and rotated relative to the initial location. (Tip: Use Shift-dragging, Ctrl/Cmd-dragging, and Alt-dragging to achieve this. See Normal mode.) Move the time slider back and forth while you are working to judge the smoothness of the animation, but make sure you are only making changes while the slider is at frame 100.
• When you are finished, set Animate mode to off again.

If you have not saved the fractal already, click Save Parameters on the File menu and save the fractal as Animated Phoenix in tutorials.upr.