Dope Sheet

Classical animation technique included the use of an exposure sheet, called an “X” sheet or a Dope Sheet. The Dope Sheet was a vertical chart that served as instructions to the camera operator. Dialogue and Camera actions were indicated over a numbered list that represented each shot which became a single photographed frame of the animated movie. The classical exposure sheet also included instructions for compositing the cel drawings of animated characters over backgrounds. This device serves as inspiration for this tool in 3ds max5.

The 3ds max Dope Sheet editor is similar to the classic X sheet. It displays keyframes over time, only using a horizontal graph (rather than vertical). This provide tools for adjusting the timing of your animation. Here you can see all the keys in a spreadsheet-type interface. You can select any or all of the keys in a scene, scale them, move them, copy and paste them or otherwise work directly here, rather than in the viewport. You can choose to select the keys for children, or subtree or both, so you can make simple changes that affect many objects and their keys at once.

A common use of Dope Sheet is to stagger the movement of a character's limbs so they don't happen simultaneously. If you have a crowd of characters, you could use Dope Sheet to shift movements so they don't happen in unison.

Like the Curve Editor, Dope Sheet has both a menu bar and toolbars to provide you quick access to tools.

Dope Sheet menu bar

Unlike Curve Editor, Dope Sheet has two modes Edit Keys and Edit Ranges. These modes change the display in the Key window.

When Edit Keys is turned on, the keyframes are displayed as boxes within rectangles on a grid. The keys are color coded to show what has been keyframed (position is red, scale is yellow, rotation is green, and so on.)

Colored keys

Dope Sheet keys are now displayed as rectangles within boxes so you can easily spot keys that are sub-frame keys (keys that fall in-between frames). Keys that fill the boxes are on the frame, keys that are small rectangles are sub-frame.

SubFrame Keys

Dope Sheet, just like the Curve Editor, allows you to use soft selection on keys. This is extremely useful when you are dealing with massive quantities of keys, such as in motion capture data files. Combine this with scaling keys for a means to manipulate motion data.

Soft selection of Dope Sheet keys

When Edit Ranges is turned on, the animation tracks are displayed as range bars. No individual keys are visible. Use Ranges when you only want to change how long something happens, or when it starts and ends, rather than when you need to manipulate particular keys within an action.

Edit range mode

When working in Dope Sheet you can turn on or off Modify Subtree and Modify Child Keys. These let you automatically move the keys for the children, and/or the tracks for the subtree. If you experience a slowdown while working with Dope Sheet, try turning these off, and moving the keys manually instead. Modify Subtree is on by default in Dope Sheet, but off in Curve Editor.

Dope Sheet offers you a variety of tools for working directly with time. You can select a period of time, which includes all the keys within that period, and then perform different operations on that time segment. You can copy and paste time to loop animations, or reverse time so the animation plays backward. You can insert time to add a space to an animation, or delete time to shorten a motion.

Note: For Dope Sheet procedures, see the individual tools and menu choices within the links below.

Track View Menu Bar

Dope Sheet Toolbar

Select Time

Edit Ranges

Edit Keys