How do you make objects appear in a blender scene at specific times? I am creating a blender animation that involves an explosion. I created the explosion object in a separate blender file, but if I import the object into the main scene, It just plays the explosion animation at frame 1. But I want the explosion to happen at frame 245. Is there a way to make the object come into the scene at that specific frame, or can I at least keep the animation paused until then? Or am I thinking along the wrong lines entirely?

Note: I cannot just create the explosion within the main file because it gets all dragged out and it stutters. It works fine when I import it, it just happens too early.
While you can animate the visibility of an object, I think you are more interested in adjusting the timing of the animation. Using the dopesheet you can select the keyframes of your animation and move them along to start at frame 245.

Similar tot he 3dview you can use A to select all keyframes and G to move them. After grabbing the keyframes you can also type in the number of frames you want to move them.



You may also be able to render two separate animations and join them together in the VSE