As one of the “crazies” who has worked with Autokey on for ages, I’m interested in how other actually set their key frames. Like, to the point of I hit the set key button, I right click and use the contextual menu, I use this hotkey, I toggle autokey on then toggle it off.
Roto is always the thing that has tripped me up in the past and why I am an autokey on kind of guy. Nothing worse than getting to the end of a painful roto only to realise that you haven’t been saving keyframes.
I actually wish autokey could be turned on or off by default on a per node basis. I’d have autokey on for sure for GMask Tracer. In Action/2D Transform, any colour correction or keyer node, I’d probably leave it off.
In my opinion the first critical thing is to map a more ergonomic hotkey than the default ctrl-a. I set mine to alt-a which is very fast. I keep it off by default, hotkey it on when keyframes are needed, then hotkey it off. The yellow autokey button on the right always lets you know the status in peripheral vision.
I’m with @GPM on the ergonomics of rebinding to a more convenient Auto key button and I’m a big fan of single key shortcuts for the most commonly used commands. I’m left handed and my right hand spends a lot of time in the middle of the keyboard, so the semi-colon key made sense to me. It’s muscle memory for me now and turning it on and off is completely second nature. But I’m also no stranger to the Alt+click to delete everything and K+click to set them quickly.
As a PC gamer, keyboard shortcuts are close to my heart
With @GPM and @Jeff here.
I have had my custom hotkey set to space-a for 20+ years and it probably is the one I use the most. I chose “space” as the modifier since it’s big and most accesible wherever the other key is.
autokey on - but as you say because its tripped me up. would much rather see a Resolve type of thing where it has a smart auto key. In case you don’t know - In Resolve auotkey is activated only if you set a keyframe - and only for that axis or node or whatever. its a great way to work. so basically I can move things anywhere I want them to be, set colour levels etc etc but when I want to animate I set a keyframe and then it stores them but only on that thing. It’s important you have that red button next to the parameter to set the key frame as well as it being an indicator that auto key is turned on for that parameter. Would love to see that in flame. so autokey off, smart autokey and auto key. it’s the same in C4d too.
I need to have the autokey off 90% of time. As long as you don’t need to animate sth, there is no sense for keyframes.
I love to create socials from other artists, where, for every shot, you need to unkeyframe it first. Just to reposition the framing.
