Guides / Using Lumit / Animation

Updated 4 November 2026

Retiming and speed

Retime maps a layer’s time to its source’s time. It is how Lumit plays footage at another speed, ramps between speeds, holds a frame or runs backwards.

A point added to a clip's speed envelope, and the clip's end dragged down to 25%.

Ways to change speed

Way	Where	Works on
Speed envelope	Under a Sequence layer’s clips	Clips
Speed…	A clip’s right-click menu	Clips
Retime	Layer ▸ Enable Retime, `Ctrl+Alt+T`	Footage and Precomp layers
Stretch…	A layer’s right-click menu in the Timeline, or `Shift`+drag either end	Footage and Precomp layers
Freeze frame at playhead	A layer’s right-click menu in the Timeline	Footage and Precomp layers
Interpret footage…	The Project panel’s right-click menu	Footage items
Posterize time	Effect ▸ Temporal	Any layer

The Retiming workspace puts the Easing panel beside the Viewer, with the Timeline across the bottom.

Speed on a clip

Each clip in a Sequence layer has its own speed. Double-click the Sequence layer’s row in the Timeline to open it. Under the clips is the speed envelope: a line per clip, in per cent.

Drag a line up or down to change the speed. The points at both ends of the stretch move together. On a clip that has never been retimed the whole line moves as one.
Double-click a line, or Ctrl+click it, to add a point. It takes the speed already there.
Drag a point sideways to move it in time, in whole frames. A clip’s first and last points stay on its ends.
Hold Shift or Alt while dragging to move a point in time only.
Hold Ctrl while dragging to change the speed a tenth as fast, with the point held at its time. Ctrl also suspends the snap to Every frame.
Alt+click a point to remove it. A clip’s first and last points stay.
Double-click a point to put it back to 100%.
Drag across empty space in the strip to select points, with Shift to add to them. Selected points move together, across clips too.
Drag the divider above the strip to make it taller.

On a point’s right-click menu	What it does
Set speed…	Types the point’s speed.
Reset to 100%	Puts the point back to 100%.
Delete point	Removes the point. Not on a clip’s first or last.

On the line’s right-click menu	What it does
Add point	Adds a point where the click was.
Linear	The speed changes evenly to the next point.
Fast	The speed changes most just after the point.
Slow	The speed changes most just before the next point.
Smooth	The speed eases out of the point and into the next.
Sharp	The speed changes fastest near both points.
Hold	The speed stays as it is until the next point, then jumps.
Flip	Mirrors every point’s speed about 100%.
Thin	Removes the points already on the straight line between their neighbours.
Reset speed	Sets the whole clip back to 100%.

Below 0% the clip plays backwards.

A clip keeps its start and its length. A change of speed changes which source frames fill it. Lengthening a retimed clip carries on at the speed its last point has.

On a clip’s right-click menu	What it does
Speed…	Sets the whole clip to one speed, from 1% to 10000%.
Reset speed	Sets the whole clip back to 100%.
Copy this clip’s shape	Copies the clip’s cut and ramp, without its media.
Copy the whole row’s shape	Copies where every cut falls and how each piece is ramped.
Paste shape onto this layer	Cuts and ramps this Sequence layer to match.

The razor cuts through a ramp. In the Cut timeline the same line is drawn across each picture clip.

Retime on a layer

Footage and Precomp layers have a Retime of their own. Turn it on with Layer ▸ Enable Retime, Ctrl+Alt+T, or Enable Retime on the layer’s right-click menu. A Sequence layer has none: its clips carry theirs.

Turning it on adds a Retime row above Transform, with two linear keyframes at the layer’s in and out points. Nothing changes until a key moves. The row reads the moment of the source showing, as timecode at the footage’s own frame rate. Settings ▸ Timeline ▸ Editing ▸ Retime values in seconds shows seconds instead.

Disable Retime removes the map, and so does turning off the row’s stopwatch. The layer keeps the frame it showed at its in point and plays on from there at normal speed.

A node graph placed as a Precomp layer retimes the same way. Inside a graph, a Time offset box shifts one branch.

The ends of a retimed layer’s bar drag freely. A drag trims or extends the layer and never changes its speed.

Edit ▸ Split layer on a retimed layer puts a keyframe at the cut on both halves, so the curve keeps its shape.

The graph editor

Select the Retime row and open the graph editor (Shift+F3). The Value and Speed buttons at the bottom pick the lens.

Lens	Shows
Value	Which moment of the source shows, in seconds. A rising line plays forwards, a flat line holds, a falling line plays backwards.
Speed	How fast the source runs.

The Retime row in the Value lens, then the Speed lens: a point added at five seconds and dragged down to 44%.

Settings ▸ Timeline ▸ Editing ▸ Retime opens to Speed makes the Speed lens a speed envelope in per cent, the same as a clip’s, and opens the Retime row straight into it. With it off, the Speed lens is the ordinary speed graph of any property, with Keyframe speed… on a key’s menu.

In the speed envelope:

Double-click the line, or Ctrl+click it, to add a point.
Double-click a point to put it back to 100%.
Right-click a point for Set speed…, which types its Frame and Speed, Reset to 100%, the curve to the next point, and Delete key. Speed runs from −10000% to 10000%.
Alt+click a point to remove it.
Hold Ctrl while dragging to change the speed a tenth as fast.
The first point stays where it is. Moving a later point moves the frames after it.

A speed ramp in the graph editor, seen through the Speed lens.

Every frame is a dashed line at the speed where footage with a higher frame rate than the composition shows each of its frames once. Below it frames repeat. A dragged point snaps to it and the line lights. It appears only for footage faster than the composition.

Stretch

Stretch… plays a layer at a new speed and gives it the length that speed implies. Right-click the layer’s row in the Timeline and choose Stretch…, or hold Shift and drag either end of the layer’s bar. Dragging the start holds the end where it is. In the Audio and Cut workspaces, Shift+drag on either edge of a clip stretches the clip.

The dialogue takes a New speed, from 1% to 10000%, or a New duration in frames. Editing either moves the other. The layer’s in point holds and its end moves.

Stretch turns Retime on if it was off, and scales an existing Retime about the in point. With several layers selected each gets the same speed. A Sequence layer cannot be stretched; its clips have Speed….

Freeze a frame

Right-click the layer’s row and choose Freeze frame at playhead. The frame showing is held for one second, everything after it moves one second later, and the layer keeps its length.

The hold is two ordinary keyframes on the Retime row. It is refused on a Sequence layer, and on or outside the layer’s ends.

A point at 0% in a speed envelope also holds, and so does a Hold keyframe in the Value lens.

Play backwards

There is no Reverse command. A speed below 0% plays backwards: drag a point under 0%, or type a negative speed into Set speed…. In the Value lens a line that falls plays backwards.

Stretch… and Speed… stop at 1%.

Frames in between

The In-between frames setting on a footage layer’s Source card decides what shows when a retime lands between two source frames:

Mode	How
Nearest	Repeats the closer frame. Sharp, but it stutters.
Blend	Crossfades the two frames. Smooth, but it ghosts.

The same footage at 25%: Nearest repeats each frame four times, Flow makes the frames between.

The third answer is Flow, which makes the frame in between. It is the Flow switch in the layer’s Modes column, and Layer ▸ Flow. Turning it on adds a Flow group to Effect controls and to the layer’s rows in the Timeline:

Control	What it sets
Engine	Built in, or RIFE from the model pack in Settings ▸ Addons.
Flow resolution	Native, Half or Quarter: the size the motion is measured at.
Input rate	The rate the footage is read at, below its own: On 2s (12) for animation on twos. Auto is the file’s own rate. Keyframeable.
Vector detail	Low to Ultra.
Smoothness	How even the motion field is, 0 to 100.
Occlusion	Where a pixel shows in only one of the two frames: Visible only takes that frame, Blend weights both.
Fallback	Blend or Nearest, where flow is not confident enough to make a frame.
HUD guard	Blends still, detailed areas, such as a game’s interface, instead of flowing them. On by default.
Always on	Flows even where every comp frame already lands on a source frame.

Flow works only between 0% and the speed where every source frame is shown once.

Flow and In-between frames are set on footage layers. Convert to sequence layer gives every clip the footage layer’s setting.

A machine without the RIFE pack previews with the built-in engine and says so on the row, and an export of that layer is refused. Turning Flow off returns the layer to Nearest and keeps the group’s settings.

Retime blend in the export dialogue’s overrides exports with these settings, or with every layer and clip on Nearest.

Sound

A retimed layer or clip plays its sound at its speed, a Precomp’s whole mix included. Keep pitch, on the right-click menu of a layer or clip with sound, holds the pitch. It is on by default. Off, the pitch rises and falls with the speed, as on tape. Every clip on a layer follows the layer’s setting.

Detach audio on the layer’s right-click menu moves its sound to an Audio layer of its own. Convert to sequence layer is refused on a retimed layer.

Overrun

A retime that asks for source time past the end of the media, or before its start, holds the last or first frame. Overrun never moves layer ends or edit points.

Interpret footage

Interpret footage… on the Project panel’s right-click menu (Ctrl+Alt+G) reads a file at another Frame rate. Every layer and clip using it plays the same pictures at the new rate. See Importing.

From After Effects

An imported layer’s Time Remap becomes its Retime. A time stretch becomes the matching straight-line Retime, and a negative one runs backwards. Frame Mix becomes Blend and Pixel Motion becomes Flow.