Hi Nem,

I used trax quite extensivley last year for uni stuff. Trax can be a useful tool, but non linear its not. What I mean by that is:

Once you go down the trax path (clips and poses) its very hard to control your f curves with any degree of sensibility this is because;

say for instance you create a clip that uses keys on a character between 0 and 100. You create clip then move, scale, cycle, cut and chop, blend your clips together to create some cool animation.
If you (right click) on a clip and activate the keys you will find that the keys are (in the timeline wise) where they were created NOT where they are in relation to the clip. This becomes frustrating when dealing with f curves and trying to see the corresponding curve data in relation to the actual objects animation.


Maybe someone could surprise me and correct me if this isn't so (hope so).

I also got popping in animation (between clips that were layered .eg. facial animation stuff).

Also you can only convert to keys one clip at a time.
Major problem if you have 50 thousand clips layered on top of each other........
Softimage's XSI has non linear animation also, but the difference (that Iv'e seen) between the two is that XSI was conceived from the ground up as a non linear animation system/package where as Maya's seems to be bolted on as an extra.

As to reversing your clip. I think the option for 'timewarp' in the clip options can help with the reversing of clips. I'm not sure on this though so you should check in the manual.

After saying all this, I (at the moment) use character and sub character nodes (to layer animation) without the use of the trax editor. I find the restrictions that the trax editor places on me more hassle than any advantages that may arise from using clips and poses. Keys, keys, keys my friend!!!!!!


re Jim