Hi,
I have key frames at frame 10, 20 and 30. I make the animation cyclic by adding the cyclic modifier. It duplicates the whole frame range (10 to 30). Where can I specify the modifier shall only duplicate frames 20 to 30?
Note that I do not ask about the “restrict frame range” setting because it limits the target frame range. I want to limit the source frame range that specifies what to duplicate.
For such a basic intention, I’ve found a pretty complicated way which has it’s side effects:
I’ve split the action into two parts by first duplicating it, deleting the second part from the first action and the first part from the second action. As Blender cannot edit actions as such w/o being assigned to something (like with everything else in Blender), you first have to assign one action to the object, edit it, press the [F] button to add a fake user - Blender still deletes things by itself without asking - select the other action and edit that one. Then make an NLA track/strip from the first action, add another clip referring to the second action… Can you still follow? Well, it doesn’t matter as it’s not an acceptable workflow anyway. One side effect is that the last key frame of one action is equal to the first key frame of the second action, and whenever you change one, you have to keep in mind for your whole live that you need to perform the same modification to the first key frame of the second action.
Ok, back to practice. Simple requirement, simple answer: How can I repeat only a part of an action infinitely?
Ok, I’ve attached a simple example. A sphere moves, then jumps. I want to make frames 30 to 60 cyclic so that the sphere continues jumping. How can I do this? With a cyclic modifier, I can not specify which frames to repeat as it repeats the whole action.
Test 234 V1.blend (76.6 KB)
Thanks for looking into it.
Is this the motion you are trying to get. In the graph editor, select Z location and then go to the Key panel and select add F-curve modifier. Choose cycles, and then in the Modifier properties panel change to No cycles before frame 30.
Test 234 V2.blend (77 KB)
Thanks Alan, yes, that’s the motion I’m trying to get. You did it completely right, but it’s not what I meant because I was referring to a single channel only. So, even more simplified:
Test 234 V3.blend (74.8 KB)
In this file, how would you make only frames 30 to 50 cyclic?
In advance, the (complicated) solution I was talking about is as shown here: Test 234 V4.blend (78.6 KB)
I’m using the NLA editor. One clip contains the first part of the animation, the second clip the second part. This way I’m able to use two different actions per object. However, the side effect is that the key frame at frame 30 is a duplicate in both actions. This leads to the transition between the NLA clips not beeing as smooth as before, so you have to modify the key frame at frame 30 manually to make it smooth again. In addition, whenever the key value of the last frame of action 1 changes, the value has to be copied to the first frame of action 2. (yes, a driver could do this automatically, but that’s an additional effort while still talking about a primitive task, IMO)
Hi there 8 years later!
Did you find any simple solution to this?
Best
My simple solution would be, copy transforms from something that’s cylic, and keyframe the influence of the constraint to 0 until you want it to start being cyclic.
Sry, I really wanted to answer earlier, but I was alwas postponing it as I’d have to get into this topic again as I do not even remember what it was about. You know, sometimes you’re waiting for the right point in time, but it never comes.