We just shipped ExactKey — a small, surgical Blender addon that solves one problem well: editing a keyframe's exact value without ever moving the playhead.
If you've ever been parked on the final pose of a shot, spotted a wrong key 48 frames in the past, and groaned at the thought of scrubbing back, fixing it, and scrubbing forward again — this is for you.
The boring problem we kept hitting
Animation work moves at the speed of your shortest feedback loop. Every trip to the N-panel, every detour through a side menu, every scrub across the timeline is a tax on focus.
The most common version of this tax in Blender looks like this:
- You're judging a final pose. The arc is wrong 48 frames back.
- Scrub the playhead back to that frame.
- Tweak the value via the N-panel "Active Keyframe" field (Graph Editor only) or by hand-editing the property.
- Scrub forward again — and lose the visual reference of the pose you were judging.
Five steps, two trips across the timeline, and a broken focus. Multiply by every iteration of every shot.
ExactKey collapses all of it into one double-click.
What ExactKey actually does
It registers an inline-edit operator on three editors — Dope Sheet, Graph Editor, and Timeline. Double-click any keyframe and a small floating popup appears, anchored on the key, with three editable fields:
- Frame — the integer frame number
- Value — the Y-axis value
- Interpolation — Constant, Linear, Bezier, or any of Blender's other modes
Press Enter to commit, Esc to cancel, Tab to cycle fields. The playhead doesn't move. Each commit is a single undo step.
That's the core. Everything else is built on top.
Relative math in the value field
Type +5, -2, *1.1, /2, or plain arithmetic like 2+3*4 directly in the Value field:
| Input | Effect |
|---|---|
5 | Set value to 5 |
+0.5 | Add 0.5 to current value |
*1.1 | Multiply current value by 1.1 |
/2 | Halve current value |
2+3*4 | Plain arithmetic, evaluated to absolute |
No mental math, no calculator, no detour to a Python console.
Apply To Selected (batch deltas)
When multiple keys are selected and you toggle Apply To Selected in the popup, your value change broadcasts as a delta to every selected key. Eight keys, one operation, one undo step. Useful for:
- Scaling a row of peaks (
*1.2) - Nudging a held pose (
+0.05) - Rebalancing an ease across a set of in-betweens
Channel Snapshot
Hit Shift + double-click on any keyframe and ExactKey opens a spreadsheet-style popup listing every channel keyed at that frame on the active object. Tweak any of them, hit Enter, all changes commit at once.
It's the fastest way we've found to rebalance a complex pose — translate, rotate, scale, plus shape keys and constraints — without the timeline ever moving.
Hover halo + tooltip
Hover any keyframe with no click. A subtle GPU halo glows under your cursor. After a short dwell, a tooltip appears showing data_path[index] · frame : value. You can read your scene without touching it.
If you prefer a quieter editor, the overlay toggles off in preferences.
Quiet by design
ExactKey only binds the trigger you choose — double-click by default, or Alt+Click / Ctrl+Click if you prefer. It doesn't overload single-click selection, scrubbing, or any default Blender keymap. It plays nicely with animBot, AniMate Pro, and your own custom keymaps.
Slotted Actions native
Built and tested against Blender 4.2 LTS through 5.1, including the Slotted Actions data layout introduced in 4.4. Zero external dependencies. Works offline.
What's it cost?
$9.99 for a personal license. Free updates throughout v1.x. 30-day money-back guarantee. Studio licenses available — email support@strayspark.com.
Where to next
- Product page → — features, pricing, FAQ
- Docs → — install in 30 seconds, full feature reference
- Getting Started → — your first edit, end-to-end
If you build animation in Blender and the playhead-scrub tax has ever cost you focus, ExactKey is the smallest possible fix.