Timeline

The Timeline is the most basic animation editor. It simply shows the time and displays keyframes in the selected objects as yellow vertical lines. You can change the current frame and scrub through the animation by pressing and dragging LMB and positioning the green cursor along the timeline.

In the Timeline, you can also set the Start and End frames of the animation: Press S to set the current frame as the Start and press E to set the current frame as the End. Also, you can enter the frame number in the Start and End fields of the Timeline’s header.

The header also has controls that play the animation, go to the start and end of the animation, or jump to the next or previous keyframes. Here are some other shortcuts you can use in the 3D View (or to control time in any other editor):

Press Alt + A to play the animation. Press Alt + A again to pause it. Press Esc to stop the animation and go back to the frame from which you started playing.

Press the Left and Right arrow keys to move to the previous or next frames. Press the Up or Down arrow keys to jump to the previous or next keyframes. Press Shift + Up arrow key or Shift + Down arrow key to jump around in 10-frame increments.