A key question...

[tiddles]

Hi all (sorry if been asked)

Is it possible to insert keys frames into the timeline?

I have a 50 frame animation and I want to add 25 frames at frame#10 to make 75 frames total (I was also hoping that all the existing keys set after frame 10 would be moved 25 frames further along timeline.

Thanks in advance...

[skywola]

You can insert a key at any time by pressing the "s" button. If you need to re-arrainge things, you probably should go to:

window>animation editors>graph editor. If you have not learned how to use the graph editor yet, now is a good time . . . You can find info on it in the Maya library. There may even be a training video for it somewhere, who knows.

[tiddles]

thanks for the reply skywola,

I understand that I can set a key frame by pressing 'S' but this will not increase the amount of frames my project has. I also know that I can increase the total amount of frames in timeline simply by adjust the last frame number.


Crude example of my time existing timeline:
where A, B & C are animation keys

0.....A....10...........................B......... ..C........50
|___|___|______________|______|_____|



What I need: with 25 new frames added in at frame 10:

.................25 new frames
0.....A..........added here..............................B...........C... .....75
|___|____|___________|_____________|______|_____|

I hope this explains my question a little better....

[skywola]

I do not know of any way you can just insert keyframes. I'm not real sure why you would want to when you can just increase the number of keyframes and then edit the animation curves. . .

[tiddles]

thanks again for being patient - sorry if i'm re-asking the same question...

i have now found the animation graph editor thanks to you and i can see how to move a single key frame, but i need to be able to move all animation of all objects. not just a single frame.

i also can see that i can select an object and see its keys & cut & paste them further along the time line (this may work but will require me to do each object 1 at a time)..

obviously i am very new to maya. i come from a video editing background. if i want to insert a new sequence in an existing video, i would simply split the video and move it along in time line until i have made a gap for the new sequence to be inserted. i guess i was hoping to be able to do that same in maya timeline.

at the moment i have a character standing in scene - he then waves - he then walks off. what i want to be able to do is to animate him walking in shot before the wave. i need some space at beginning of animation to do this. this is why i wanted to move all all animation down the line and make a gap for this walking in sequence.

if this can simply be done with 1 swift stoke in the graph editor - can you please explain how?

[tiddles]

i just had a thought...

maybe it would be simpler for everyone if i just make a new maya project animating the walk-in only, then render both projects and join togther in post.....?

[skywola]

As far as I know you can't copy it all at once, although I would not say that it is not possible, because it could be.

However, from what you have told me, there may several possible ways . . .

First, you can create negative keyframes, and go from -200 to +200. This way is probably not a solution in your case, because you want a shot of him standing first.

second . . . . it is not really necessary that you create an animation all in one time. You can render out the part that shows him standing, render out the part that shows him waving, and render out the part that shows walking seperately, and then stitch it all together in whatever order you want as long as you can do the transitioning between the shots so it looks ok.

Third . . . and I don't quote Nietzsche without having read him well . . . . . you could probably (I have not tried it) create negative keyframes and have the animation go backward, so that the frames run backwards . . . . for example set it to run from frame 100 to frame -100 . . . .

And now again my Favorite Nietzsche quote . . .

[tiddles]

thanks again skywola,

your suggestion of rendering each stage of animation separately will fix my problem just fine :attn:

i guess this is why storyboarding is so important :p

take care...