There have been a few code cleanups which have allowed for more flexible keyframing tools. Also, it is now faster and easier to see which frames have keyframes.
Among the highlights of the improved keyframe management tools:
The Insert Key (IKEY) menu now features a few more commonly used sets of keyframing options. This is most noticable in the menus for Objects and Bones, where there are new options to keyframe different combinations of transforms (such as Location + Scaling, or Rotation and Scaling).
Separators have also been added, to help group related sets of options together, making it easier to find an item. This also gives the menus a nicer appearance.
Another feature common to all the new menus is that the 'Available' option can now be found at the end of every menu. This makes it easier to add keyframes where they're needed, instead of having to remember where they've been set.
Also, several of the keyframing options can now be used together at the same time. The 'Only Needed' and 'Visual Keying' options (found in the User Preferences under 'Edit Methods' -> 'Auto Keyframing') are no longer separately handled internally, meaning that they can be used together without any extra effort. By enabling one of the aforementioned settings, the appropriate methods for inserting keyframes will be used for any given keyframing-set, regardless of whether that set specifically inserts that sort of keyframe (i.e. Visual Keying is used whether 'standard' keyframes or 'Visual' keyframes are chosen). However, that method will only be used if it is appropriate.
It is now possible to delete keyframes using the Alt-I hotkey. This option can be used in the places where keyframes can be inserted (i.e. the 3d-View and Buttons Window). Like the Insert Key tool, the Delete Key tool presents a menu showing the types of keyframes that could be deleted on the current frame. The 'Available' option is also present at the bottom of each menu.
Note: The list of keyframe types presented is currently not filtered to only show the types of keyframe available on the current frame.
Auto-Keyframing settings are now stored per-scene. The setting for new scenes is initialised from the settings in the User Preferences. This makes this feature more useful for animators. Also, the new keyframe insertion improvements are taken into account by Auto-Keyframing too.
Note: only the On/Off and Add/Replace Mode options are stored per scene.
The info-string at the bottom left-corner of the 3D-view has been improved to be more informative for fullscreen animating. Improvements include:
There are new options to tweak when the string will indicate that there is a keyframe. These can be found in the 'View Properties' panel.
In order to support editing of Grease Pencil timing in the Action Editor, there is now a mode selector which determines what data is being edited. Currently, only 'Actions', 'ShapeKeys', and 'Grease Pencil' data are supported. As a result of this, it is now possible to choose to edit ShapeKey animation that is not part of an Action, or Action Data. It also means that there is no more ambiguity over what sort of data is being edited.
In order to facilitate the editing of Action Group colours, there is now a 'Channel Properties' panel that appears when the NKEY is pressed while hovering over keyframes. The old NumButs are still in use when NKEY is pressed over the channel names though.
Currently, this panel only displays information about the active Action Group. It contains options to edit the colour of the group channel, as well as selection and grouping tools.
A few new tools have been added to make working with armatures easier. These include:
Bones can now be locked in EditMode, so that a bone can be protected from accidental editing (via transforms).
Selected bones can be locked/unlocked by using the Bone Setting tools: Shift-W (toggle setting), Ctrl-Shift-W (enable setting), Alt-W (disable setting).
Bones can also be locked/unlocked by clicking on the 'Lock' toggles in the Transform Properties panel and also in the Editing buttons.
In EditMode, the Ctrl-Alt-A hotkey can be used to align bones with other bones.
It works the same way as for parenting:
In PoseMode, the Ctrl-A hotkey can now be used to apply the current pose as the new rest-pose for the armature.
It is advisable to 'apply' the existing armature deformations to geometry deformed by the armature before applying this, to prevent unexpected results.
New hierarchy selection tools have been added in pose mode and armature edit mode, to let you quickly traverse up and down a chain of bones.
When copying constraints, the old constraints are no longer removed from the destination bones first. This means that it is now possible to 'append' constraints at the end of an existing constraint stack instead of having to add them manually.
Note: constraints can still be removed first by using the Alt-C hotkey (i.e. 'Remove Constraints'). This feature has always been available.
The hotkeys for adding and removing IK constraint have been changed to have easier access/consistent access to other more frequently used features.
Multiple IK constraints can now coexist on the same bone. It works by ignoring any IK constraints that are disabled (with influence == 0), while considering working ones. This allows for things such as Auto-IK working on bone/chain with a disabled IK-constrains.
Also, Auto-IK has been modified so that it uses the settings of the last available targetless IK constraint on the bone (if it is available).
A bug with Targetless IK and the ChildOf constraint has now been fixed, so that the ChildOf constraint is still taken into account.
Bassam Kurdali's famous rigged character "Mancandy" has been updated for the 2.48 release. Some bugfixes in constraints made the older version not work properly anymore.