Set Params to not animate?

Is there a way to set some params to not be animated?
The one I want to do this for now is the Blend Method. I change it quite a lot when animating for different views and I often find that I’ve changed it so that the blend method gets animated over time and I have to hunt down all keys for it and remove them. Quite tedious.
I would like the value to not animate so if I change the blend method it statically changes over the whole scene and are not animated.
How can I do this?

If you accidentally modified one parameter and want to set it back to a constant value you have to disconnect it form the animated value node. Right click on the parameter and select “Disconnect”. Beware that disconnect from an animated valuenode implies connect to a constant valuenode and it will be the current value of the parameter in the moment you select the Disconnect menu entry. All the waypoints will dissapear for that parameter.
Regarding to the main question (Is there a way to set some params to not be animated?) I don’t know any other way to achieve that than being in not animated mode. Remember that you can be in animate mode or in not animate mode at any frame.
You can modify one parameter and it will remain as static value if you do it in not animated mode. Once it is modified in animated mode (and a waypoint is added) you cannot modify it in not animated mode because it is not linked to any constant value node, and in non animated mode, only constant values can be modified. Unfortunately a parameter can be “linked” to one value node, animated or constant, but only one.

In your particular case, the blend method is not usually animated (unless some special effect is going to be achieved) so you should not start to animate until you have clear the initial design (and the parameters that will remind not animated).

But anyway yes, there should be a way to make one single parameter not animatable at all and be able to modify its constant value being in animated mode.

For accidental duck modification you can convert the parameter that is represented by a duck to “Greyed” (it is only in svn revision) and it will become a parameter not modificable using the ducks and the mouse. That prevents accidental modifications durign animation of other ducks of the same or of other layer(s).

-G

Thank’s Genete, you’re being very helpful as always.

So, just to collect my thoughts here, disconnecting the channel does basically just flush the waypoints that are in the timeline? If I change blendmode after I’ve disconnected it I get new waypoints added?

To change value without having it animated the only way now is to switch to non animation mode before changing blend and then switch back to animation mode after I changed value?
I will forget to switch and end up with a mess but it’s a minor problem, easily solved.

Basically what I would want is a per-channel animation/non-animation mode. I’ll add a feature req. about this later.

The thing is that I know which blend modes I wil use for final output but want to switch between different ones while working and not have this animated.
I’ve got a few layers with different blend modes on top of an image sequence. Final output will be without image sequence so I’m switching the layer above it between composite to see how output will look like, and multiply to see how animation match up with image sequence.

Also, a follow-up question;
Is there a keyboard shortcut to toggle between animation and non-animation mode?
Couldn’t find anything about this in the keyboard reference guide.

I cannot find it either. It is a must have feature, really.
-G