How to Create Custom Animations with Keyframes

Keyframing lets you animate any property over time by setting values at specific points and letting Wayaframe interpolate between them. Move an element across the canvas, fade opacity, shift colors, scale up during a chorus, or create any custom animation that changes over the duration of a clip.

How keyframes work

A keyframe marks a specific value for a property at a specific point in time. When you set two or more keyframes with different values, Wayaframe smoothly transitions between them. The shape of that transition is controlled by the easing curve.

Keyframeable properties

Over 70 properties can be keyframed across all clip types:

Transform

Position (X, Y, Z), scale (X, Y with optional linking), rotation (X, Y, Z), skew (X, Y), and perspective.

Appearance

Opacity, background color (RGB + gradients), background opacity, and blend-related properties.

Drop shadow

Angle, distance, blur, opacity, and color (RGB).

Text

Font size, fill color (RGB + gradients), stroke color (RGB), stroke width, padding (X, Y), background color (RGB + gradients), background opacity, and border radius.

Shape

Width, height, fill color (RGB + gradients), stroke color (RGB), stroke width, and corner radius.

Media frame

Border color (RGB), border width, and corner radius.

Color adjustments

Saturation, temperature, hue, brightness, contrast, shine, highlight, shadow, sharpness, vignette, fade, and grain.

Audio

Volume.

Effects

Effect intensity and filter-specific properties.

Adding keyframes

Diamond button

Each keyframeable property in the property panel shows a diamond icon next to its control. Click the diamond to add a keyframe at the current playhead position with the property's current value. If a keyframe already exists at that position, clicking the diamond removes it.

The diamond shows different states:

Empty: no keyframe at the current time.
Filled: a keyframe exists at the current time.
Dot indicator: the property is animated (has keyframes) but the playhead is not on one.

Navigation arrows

Arrow buttons on either side of the diamond let you jump to the previous or next keyframe for that property.

Auto keyframes

Toggle Auto Keyframes in the animations panel. When enabled, editing any property value while the playhead is at a new position automatically creates a keyframe there. This lets you scrub through the timeline and set values without manually clicking the diamond each time.

Timeline keyframes

When a clip has keyframes, diamond-shaped markers appear directly on the clip in the timeline.

Visual feedback

Keyframes are color-coded by property (related properties like RGB channels share the same color).
Multiple keyframes at the same position are grouped into a single marker.
Hovering a marker shows a popover with the list of keyframes at that position.

Selecting keyframes

Click a keyframe to select it.
⇧+Click to select a range of keyframes.
⌘+Click to add or remove individual keyframes from the selection.

Moving keyframes

Drag a selected keyframe to a new position on the clip. All selected keyframes move together, maintaining their relative spacing. Keyframes snap to the playhead, timeline markers, and other keyframes. Hold ⌥ to disable snapping.

Deleting keyframes

Hover over a keyframe marker and click Delete in the popover, or select keyframes and delete them from the graph editor.

Easing and graph editor

Each keyframe has its own easing curve that controls how the value transitions to the next keyframe. Choose from 15 easing presets, create a custom bezier curve, or edit curves visually in the graph editor. See Controlling Easing and Timing for presets, the graph editor, and full details.

Linked scale

When scale X and Y are linked (the default), creating a keyframe on one automatically creates a matching keyframe on the other. Both move together on the timeline lane, and scale Y is hidden from the lane to reduce clutter. Unlink them in the Positioning, Scaling, and Rotating Clips panel if you need independent scaling.

Animation presets and keyframes

Using Animation Presets create keyframes behind the scenes. While a preset is active, the keyframes are managed by the preset and can't be edited individually. Click Convert to Editable to unlock full keyframe editing. Once converted, you have complete control but can't revert to the preset.