the animation mixer is for high level control over animation, including combining different types of animation. (fcurves, expressions, constraints, caches, plots,...)
the most obvious use is to combine a number of animation cycles on a character into a little edit. Because it looks so much like a video editing timeline, one can easily overlook the usefulness of the mixer - on the surface it’s “just a timeline with video animationclips” – and many timing effects (including reversing animation: right click on a clip in the mixer –> time properties –> scale: -1) can be done with ease. it lives in the model, and connects to the model using namespaces – allowing for the sharing of animation between different models. there’s things like offsetting the animation (in space!) with clip effects, allowing to blend between different animation sources that weren’t made to blend. it can be useful for crowd animation, for instance by blending different animation cycles on the actors based on certain conditions. I know the mixer only on the surface, and don’t need it very often, but each time I do, I discover more of what it can do. Last time I needed it, I used it to turn a linear syflex simulation into timestretched, loopable + intro/outtro animations on a bunch of objects. The mixer handled with ease what amounts to manipulating thousands of shapes on quite dense geometry, without being restricted to frames. A total nightmare to do with fcurves. I think you’re a character artist, something which could be useful to you is setting up the restpose as well as a few animations and extreme poses in the mixer. This way you can easily stress test the skinning and topology. While it has seen some improvements over time, its another of those really unique tools that were in XSI from it’s very first version, and are still not really surpassed. From: Sebastien Sterling Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2014 9:13 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Nest Mommentum, reversing animation coming from different packages, never really got into the whole mixer system, i do get the appeal though. just would never really had a frame of reference for when to employ one. On 3 June 2014 19:46, <[email protected]> wrote: usually it’s cache the dynamics first, then plot to the mixer, and then reverse the clip in the mixer. does this not work for you? From: Sebastien Sterling Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2014 8:30 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Nest Mommentum, reversing animation i have a momentum simulationm i ploted, is it possible to reverse the animation ? i'd do it in post, but i'm hoping to use some motion blur on some text, i's like it not to be reversed
