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394 Chapter 5 Using Behaviors
Changing the Timing of Behaviors
You can change a behavior’s timing to control when it starts, how long it lasts, and
when it stops. There are several ways to do this. You can use the Stop Parameter
behavior to suspend one or more behavior’s effects on a single parameter. You can also
trim each behavior in the Timeline. Finally, you can change some behaviors’ Start Offset
parameter to delay their beginning and their End Offset to end the behaviors prior to
the end of the object duration to which they are applied. These behaviors include Fade
In/Fade Out, Grow/Shrink, and Snap Alignment to Motion.
Using the Stop Parameter Behavior
The easiest way to control behavior timing is to use the Stop Parameter behavior. The
Stop behavior halts the animation occurring in any one parameter, whether the
animation is due to keyframes in the Keyframe Editor or behaviors that have been
applied to that object.
As explained in “Applying Parameter Behaviors” on page 380, all Parameter behaviors
can be applied directly to a parameter of an object (such as opacity or position) or
directly to an object (such as text or an image). If the behavior is applied directly to an
object, a parameter must be explicitly assigned to the behavior (in the Behaviors tab of
the Inspector).
To stop a parameter from animating:
1 Move the playhead to the frame where you want animation to stop.
2 Select the affected object, then open the Properties tab in the Inspector.
3 Control-click the parameter you want to stop, then choose Stop from the shortcut
menu.
The parameter is animated until the frame at which the Stop behavior begins.
Note: When a Stop behavior is applied in this manner, the Stop behavior is applied at
the current frame (regardless of the Create Layers At Preference setting).
4 To assign the Stop behavior to a different parameter, choose a new parameter from the
Apply To (“Go”) pop-up menu.
The Stop behavior halts the animation of all behaviors that affect the selected
parameter of that object. For example, if the Gravity, Edge Collision, and Rotate
behaviors are applied to a shape and you apply the Stop parameter to the shape layer’s
Position parameter, the shape stops moving but continues rotating.
To control when animation affecting that parameter is stopped, trim the Stop behavior
in the Timeline. For more information on trimming behaviors, see the next section on
page 395.