" Relative vs " Absolute" animation

Box8068_31c338ee4b

Happy New Year Everyone!

I have a a small animation issue and I was wondering if there is a different way to handle this issue. I have a group of spheres I created in the Vertex modeler.

I would like this group to oscillate on the x axis moving half inch forward and half inch back. No problem I moved them  to the two locations in the model room and chose an oscilate tweener.

Now I would like to duplicate this group of spheres many times, and have each group oscillate + - half inch. I want them to be out of sync so I would slide the tweener so they did not move in sync.

The issue is any duplicated spheres move back to the location of the original group of spheres as soon as the animation starts, that what I would call "absolute" values, as opposed to " Relative" where they would move + - half inch relative to their location. If not I guess I'll need to go in and edit each tweener on each duplicate track, a bit of a PITA I would like to avoid.

Thank you!

8068

Dartanbeck

The best way around this that I can think of off the top of my head is to use Copy/Paste instead of Duplicate. 

Otherwise you'd have to duplicate the spheres first, then animate them from there. It might work to apply the animation to a Group, and then duplicate that - where it just might allow the transformation to change without the snapping back thing (?)

If their as simple of object as it sounds to me, I'd try the copy/paste thing ;)

Then you still have the animation that can be tweaked on each new copy.

Box8068_31c338ee4b

Thanks Dart

I wound up duplicate so they were automaticly spaced, then just edited the duplicated tweeners. A pain in the neck but Carrara came through again,

it does look pretty.. so worth the effort.

Thanks

and Happy New Year

8068

3DAGE

Two other ways to approach that,.

1./ Create a single sphere with the motion you want. if you want variation

Add it to a replicator,. adjust quantity, spacing random rotation ect to create the look you want.

(You can animate the motion of the replicator) just as you would animate a Group.

if you want variation,. duplicate your sphere and change the timing or speed of the animation.

If you're using the same animation on multiple objects,. you can create an animation group (can be a single sphere) then you have access to NLA, which is Non Linear animation,. so the clips can be moved around in the timeline easier than keyframes,.  the timing can be set to faster/slower in the NLA tab, and the animation can be looped,. and saved to your My Clips browser.

2. Particle systems, can be used to create an "object" particle type,.with semi-random positioning and rotation for each particle,.  and those objects particles can be animated objects. partcles also react to physical forces in the scene such as gravity ,. or invisible objects in the scene,.. which the particles will collide with.

With both of those options,. you have one object,. one animation,. and that should be much easier to work with

Note: if you have an object which is animated using keyframes,. you can make it an animated group, and then create an NLA clip from it's keyframes.

I hope that makes sense,. and helps a little.

 

Box8068_31c338ee4b

3dDAGE

Good to see you, it's been a long time. I'll give this a shot, what I have done looks great but may be hard to modify. ( I have a large grid of spheres 20x 20 x 20)

I do think my long term solution is to animate in the model room so the animation is relative to the placement of the group (object) in future animations.

it does seems a little tricky to create a 3 dimensional grid of spheres and animate that in the model room. I've come close in the Spline modeler. 

But my next try I'll use your method as it seems easier to modify.

Thanks

8068

Box8068_31c338ee4b

Ah I got it!

Using the offset modifier it is relative to my objects location, Replicate a wall of spheres, add the offsest modifier, use an oscillate tweener.

Now I can duplicate as many copies as I want and shift the tweeners out of sync.

Very Happy

Thanks All

Dartanbeck

Another trick I like to use (though I haven't tried it wit an Oscillate tweener yet) is to make the animation much longer than I need it, then make an NLA clip, just as 3DAGE mentions above.

After that, each duplicate will have the NLA Clip attached, then just slide the clip back and forth, re-time it, reverse it... NLA clips add a lot of versatility to the whole works.