Edit beats by hand
Every beat type, how timing works, and the keyboard shortcuts.
A script is a list of beats that play one after another. Click a beat to open it; use ↑ and ↓ to move it, ✕ to delete it, and + Add beat after selected to insert a new one.
Beat types
- Place, Appear, Disappear, Turn — set where someone stands, show or hide them, and which way they face.
- Walk — to a point, to another character (left, right, in front or wherever fits) or off an edge of the screen, at a pace from slowly to running. “Via” adds points to walk through.
- Walk in place — the walk cycle and footsteps without moving, for running or riding shots with a scrolling background.
- Line, Narration — dialogue; see Dialogue, text effects and voices.
- Gesture, Pose, Emote — a hop, nod, crouch or spin; one of the character's own animations (wave, sit…); or a speech-bubble symbol (♥ ! ? 💢).
- Camera — wide, close on one, follow, two-shot or look at a spot.
- Music, Sound, Fade, Shake, Flash, Letterbox, Weather, Light, Effect, Scroll background — the rest of the scene's sound and atmosphere.
- Pause — wait a moment. At the same time — run several beats together, such as a dog bouncing while the girl answers.
Each beat has a Delay to start it a little later. Under Length, fades & music you can set a target length, fades and the background music for the whole scene.
Effects on a character
An Effect beat plays an imported effect (a GIF or sprite strip named like spark-fx or hit-effect) on the whole screen or on a character, and follows them as they move. Put it Above the head (stars, sparks, “!”), on the Middle of the body or At the feet (dust), nudge it with Nudge across / up/down and tilt it with Tilt.
Tip Repeats of the same effect on the same character land a little differently each time — a bit to one side, a different tilt — so three hits don't look like copies. Untick Vary repeats to keep them identical. Just tell the AI: “each time the ball hits him, show stars above his head”. Effects also play in Godot and Unity exports.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Space | Play / pause |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+Z | Undo |
| Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y | Redo |
| Delete or Backspace | Remove the selected character or beat (whichever you picked last) |
| ← / → | Back / forward one second (with Shift: five seconds) |
| Home | Back to the start |
Tip Notes (the Notes tab) are comments pinned to a moment in the scene for you and your collaborators. They never appear in exports.
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