Dynamic animation keyframe offset for groups?

Dynamic animation keyframe offset for groups?

I use Cheetah for a lot of silly things it’s probably not intended for. I really like the timing curve and keyframe editor.

One thing I often want to do, is have lots of duplicate objects with slightly offset animation timing. For simple things, with only a few objects, it’s easy to manually drag the keyframes.

g4TZpJ7.gif


But, when there’s a lot more objects, manually dragging the keyframes to be offset is tedious and prone to errors. Here’s an example with more objects.

LEgALG2.gif


Is there a way to create duplicates with animation timing offsets? I think the answer is no. I’d still be very happy if there was a way to apply a frame offset to a group — so a group could have “+10” applied to it somewhere, and that would be used as a dynamic keyframe offset for the contents.

Does anyone have a clever solution for this? Is anyone else interested in the feature? I think I’d use it a lot.
 
Hi Marc
* I am dimly aware that there is a script to fiddle keyframes. It may be called F-Curve Utility, but I sometimes rename scripts. Please check the script forum.
* I just did a simple test and it seems to function with C3D V7 :smile:

Random remarks:
* When you copy / paste keyframes the recorded keys are inserted at the locus of the frame indicator.
* You can advance this indicator (via play+stop / manually by dragging / by entering the frame position in the four). Then paste the copied frames to the current location.
* On a long take you can set the fps to 1 to save time when pasting. Fractional frame-locations will be pasted to the proper positions, even when there is no actual frame there.
 
Thanks. I’ve just grabbed F-Curve Utility. Hopefully that helps! This stuff gets a bit cumbersome when there’s many objects or nesting levels with animation keyframes I need to edit.

* When you copy / paste keyframes the recorded keys are inserted at the locus of the frame indicator.
* You can advance this indicator (via play+stop / manually by dragging / by entering the frame position in the four). Then paste the copied frames to the current location.
Yep. Good tips, and I’m using both of those techniques now. Cheetah’s timeline editor gets so many of these small interactions right, which is part of the reason I’m using it for this task (which may not immediately seem like a job for a 3D app).

* On a long take you can set the fps to 1 to save time when pasting. Fractional frame-locations will be pasted to the proper positions, even when there is no actual frame there.
That’s a great idea.
 
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