Moving keys....is there a better, and faster, way?

[stevesayer]

Hi all,

Doea anyone know a way that I can move all my selected keys along in time uniformally? I have a hideously heavy mo-cap scene, and I'm currently trying to select all the keys for all the joints in the grpah editor (with tangents turned off) and then simply drag them all along.

The refresh rate is terrible, and I'm getting nowhere fast (or is that slowly?). Isn't there an 'offest' script/function, where I can say. 'Move all my keys along 3000 frames ' or something like that?

Any help appreciated

MrBungle

[rokl]

You could use the keyframe mel command. For instance select all your joints and do the following command:
keyframe -e -r -tc 5 -time "1:15"

this will move all your keys 5 frames ahead which are betwen 1-15 frames.

Hope this helps,
rokl

In reply to:
Doea anyone know a way that I can move all my selected keys along in time uniformally? I have a hideously heavy mo-cap scene, and I'm currently trying to select all the keys for all the joints in the grpah editor (with tangents turned off) and then simply drag them all along.

The refresh rate is terrible, and I'm getting nowhere fast (or is that slowly?). Isn't there an 'offest' script/function, where I can say. 'Move all my keys along 3000 frames ' or something like that?

[artisan00]

you know you can copy and past (or cut and paste in your case) keyframes right in the timeleine...
also, the dopesheet may help..im not sure about though, but ithitnk you can move keys in there ( i may be wrong on that one)

In reply to:
Hi all,

Doea anyone know a way that I can move all my selected keys along in time uniformally? I have a hideously heavy mo-cap scene, and I'm currently trying to select all the keys for all the joints in the grpah editor (with tangents turned off) and then simply drag them all along.

The refresh rate is terrible, and I'm getting nowhere fast (or is that slowly?). Isn't there an 'offest' script/function, where I can say. 'Move all my keys along 3000 frames ' or something like that?

Any help appreciated

MrBungle

[binomonkey]

hey, just to note, if you copy and paste in the graph editor go into the option box by right clicking in the graph editor. this gives you some neat options...
cheers

[mrees25]

In reply to:
Hi all,

Doea anyone know a way that I can move all my selected keys along in time uniformally? I have a hideously heavy mo-cap scene, and I'm currently trying to select all the keys for all the joints in the grpah editor (with tangents turned off) and then simply drag them all along.

The refresh rate is terrible, and I'm getting nowhere fast (or is that slowly?). Isn't there an 'offest' script/function, where I can say. 'Move all my keys along 3000 frames ' or something like that?

Any help appreciated

MrBungle

I find the dope sheet to be the quickest, most efficient tool for selecting and moving keys. Select the key, select the move tool, and Mid Mouse click/drag on the selected key that you wish to move. The graph editor is clumsier when trying to select or move key frames.

If someone knows a better way, I'd love to hear it, too.

Chuck

[yellowsayshello]

If you want to move a bunch of keys without dragging them, select them all, taking note of the very first and very last keyframe numbers, and use scale keys - using 'new start/end times'. Now just punch in the new start and end times, of course adding the number of frames you want to offset by. So if your current start and end is 10 and 50 and you want to shift by 5 keys, you'd punch in...can you guess?... 15 and 55 for your new start and end times. Doing it from within the graph editor seems to be 'key' centric and from the edit menu it's somewhat 'node' centric, so pick whichever suits your need. Make sure the options are set properly.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think I've ever used the dopesheet. I just don't see the advantage...I move keys in the graph editor the way you do in the dopesheet, with the move tool, using shift to constrain to time or values (horizontal or vertical). To each his own, I suppose, but I like to see my curves. I find the Graph editor easy as pie (and just as delicious). Then again I am sometimes forced use the Lightwave 6.5 'improved' motion curves (shudder - and it is actually much improved) or the absurd After Effects one (don't even get me started) so I LOVE the Maya graph. Maybe I'll mess with the dopesheet a bit.

"God saves those who save often..." - me.

[stevesayer]

Thanks for the replies. The scale method above is the fastest and easiest I've tried, as it doesn't involve any re-drawing of the curves and keys on screen. the graph editor isn't an option if theres visually over 80,000 keyframes on the screen. The script works very nicely to, although I managed to mess up my heirachy somehow, perhaps I need to do it on each joint at a time?

Thanks again,

MrBungle

[mrees25]

Thanks for the tip!

I come from a traditional animation background, and the dope sheet resembles an exposure sheet; my predisposition for the dope sheet may have something to do with the familiarity of the design. I use the dope sheet and graph editor in conjunction, usually using the dope sheet to make selections and move keys, and the graph editor to mess with the interpolation and curves. I find key selection to be more efficient in the dope sheet.

Chuck