Often when creating animation in Maya, after a while the keyframes all look the same, and it is easy to forget what is doing what at which time simply by looking at the Maya timeline. Maya’s other various editors, such as the dope sheet or the graph editor will get you back on track, however would’t it be great to see at a glance what keys are set for what, right in the timeline?

maya-colorKey-color-keyframe-script

Guillaume Gilbaud shares a script for Autodesk Maya that does just that. The python driven colorKey Script will bring up a simple user interface with six colors that will allow you to add color to the keyframe ticks right in the Maya timeline, giving you a way to easily differentiate between the animation keys.

color your keyframe’s ticks in the timeline and easily identify the type of keys you are working with

By adding color to the keyframe ticks, you are able to easily organize the animation keys on the timeline by type – in that pose keys can be set to one color, breakdowns to another. Alternatively, switch strategies and set the keyframe color by kind, using a color for the spine keys, left arm keys in another color, etc.

Running the script gives you a simple UI with six color pickers and six associated buttons, simply set the keys as you would normally, and then alter their color using the colorKey buttons. Check out the colorKey Script for coloring Maya TimeLine Keyframe ticks here.