Clips are instances of action, shape, or audio sources that you have created. Clips are represented by boxes on tracks in the mixer that you can move, scale, copy, trim, cycle, bounce, etc. Clips define the range of frames over which the animation, shape, or audio items in the source are active and play back.
While sources contain data such as function curves or cluster shapes, clips contain the time control and other properties. You can instantiate multiple clips from the same source and modify the clips independently of each other without affecting the data in the source.
If you’re working with cache files, tracks and clips for the cache files appear in the mixer. You can use the clips as you do action clips (except that you cannot create compound clips), but you cannot mix cache clips with other elements in the mixer. For more information, see ICE Caching.
Animation Layer Clips
If you’re working with animation layers, tracks and clips for the layers appear in the mixer. However, you cannot mix animation layer clips with other elements in the mixer. For more information, see Animation Layers [ Animation ].
An important thing to know about clips is that they drive the animation for the frame at which they start but not the frame at which they end. At the end of the clip, the clip is not driving the animation: at one frame before the end it is driving. The numbers on the clip show you the clip in and out values.
For example, if you key an animation at frames 1 and 30, then create an action, the Clip In and Out values are 1 and 30. The clip on the track has a duration of 30 frames.
The process of adding a clip to a track depends on the type of clip you’re creating: action (animation in general), shape animation, or audio. Regardless of the clip type, the basic process is the same.
For information on creating clips from sources, see the appropriate section:
• For actions, see Adding Action Clips to the Mixer.
• For shapes, see Adding Shape Clips to the Mixer.
• For audio, see Loading Audio Files in the Animation Mixer.
When you create a clip, the stored information drives the corresponding parameters over the range of frames covered by the clip. Clips cannot overlap on the same track, but it’s easy to align them flush on the same track to play them in sequence. To mix clips, you must add them to separate tracks with portions of each clip overlapping in time.
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Adding a clip is affected by rippling. This controls how other clips on a tracks move in relation to the added clip—see Rippling Clips. For example, if you add a clip between two other clips and there’s not enough room, it will be trimmed to fit the available space if Ripple isn’t active. |
When you select a clip, all appropriate commands are applied to it, such as copying, scaling, moving, adding clip effects, etc. A selected clip is indicated by a white border.
By default, the Select tool is active, which makes it easy to immediately select and move clips around after they are created. You can also press the space bar or choose Edit > Select Tool from the mixer’s command bar to activate this tool.
To make sure the clips don’t move at all, press Q to switch to the Rectangle Select tool. You can also choose Edit > Rectangle Select Tool from the mixer’s command bar to activate this tool.
To select clips
Using either the Select or Rectangle Select tool, you can do the following:
• Click a clip.
• Shift+click to select multiple clips.
• Ctrl+click to toggle-select multiple clips.
• Using only the Rectangle Select tool, you can drag over any part of one or more clips to select them.
To select the clips driving an element
• Select an element in the scene and choose Clip > Select Driving Actions from the mixer’s command bar to select the clips (action or shape) that are driving the element.
To select objects animated by the current clip
• To make it easy to see what elements are being animated by a clip at any given time, you can select one or more clips (action or shape) and choose Clip > Select Driven Objects from the mixer’s command bar (or right-click the clip and choose the same command).
By default, clip names have the form sourcename_Clip, but you can rename them as you like. Remember that if you change the clip’s source name at any time, any clip that is created (instanced) from it is automatically renamed to reflect the new source name.
To rename a clip
Do one of the following:
• Right-click a clip on the track and choose Rename. Change the name in the property editor that appears. This works only for action clips (but not compound action clips.
or
• You can rename clips in the same way as other elements in the explorer. See Renaming Scene Elements in the Explorer [Interface and Tools]. You’ll find the clips in the model’s Mixer > Tracks > Animation/Shape/Audio > Mixer_Trackn > Clip list folder.
The change is reflected on the clip in the mixer and in the Mixer folder.
To remove clips from a track
Do one of the following:
• Select or multi-select (Shift+click) clips and press Delete.
or
• Right-click over the clip and choose Delete.
This deletes the clip from the track’s clip list but does not affect the original animation in the model’s source list.
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Deleting a clip is affected by rippling. This controls how other clips on a rippled tracks move in relation to the deleted clip—see Rippling Clips. |
You can repeatedly play back one or more clips by setting markers for that frame range, such as for looping the animation of only one clip.
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With action clips, you can middle-click and drag an action clip to “scrub” its animation through time. |
To repeatedly play back the animation in a clip
• Right-click a clip and choose Set In/Out Loop. This sets yellow loop markers at either end of the clip.
• To play back a group of clips, multi-select them, then right-click one of the clips and choose Set In/Out Loop. This sets loop markers at the beginning of the first clip and the end of the last clip, as shown below:
• Click the Play button in the playback controls below the timeline to stop and start the animation.
• Click the Loop button to toggle the looping.
You can choose to mute certain clips so that they’re not considered in the current animation. Remember that the current state of the track is also a consideration when you’re muting individual clips (that is, the track itself can be set to mute or solo—Muting and Soloing Tracks for Playback).
To mute clips
• Select the clip and press h. Inactive clips are a light gray.
or
• Right-click the clip and choose Clip Properties, then deselect Active in the property editor that appears.
You can lock clips in place on a track to prevent them from being moved, scaled, cycled, or rippled. This locks its time control property and turns the clip to a wine color.
To lock clips
• Right-click a clip (or multi-select and right-click one of the clips) and choose Toggle Lock.
or
• Select or multi-select clips and choose Clip > Toggle Lock from the mixer’s command bar.
To unlock clips
• Right-click a locked clip and choose Toggle Lock again.
• Select or multi-select locked clips and choose Clip > Toggle Lock again.
You can toggle the display of clip information in any of the following ways:
• Choosing the appropriate clip-related commands in the View menu on the animation mixer command bar (such as weight curves, timewarp curves, cycle marks, clip markers, etc.).
or
• Choosing View > Preferences from the animation mixer command bar to set a preference for the display options.
In the Animation Mixer Preferences dialog box, click the Clips tab and select which clip items to view (such as clip name, in/out frames, scale value, weight curves, and clip markers).
or
• Right-clicking a clip and choosing Display Options. This opens the Animation Mixer Preferences dialog box with only the Clips page visible.
Displaying Clips with Thumbnail Images
You can view thumbnail images on shape, action, and image clips in the animation mixer (audio clips are not supported). For example, you can create a thumbnail image of each pose for a character’s action sources, then view these images on the corresponding action clips. Viewing thumbnails of the action sources or shape sources (shape keys) is especially useful if the source names are not descriptive or indicative of their contents.
You can use only images that have already exist in the Thumbnails folder of your current project as thumbnails; that is, you cannot use just any image file as a thumbnail.
For information in general about thumbnails, and the thumbnail viewer, see Setting Thumbnails [ Data Management ]. The thumbnail viewer lets you view all thumbnails for any objects in the scene.
To create thumbnail images
1. Select the object whose image you want to use as a thumbnail.
2. Create a render region (press q and draw) around it.
3. Select the object in an explorer (press f to find it).
4. Right-click the object and choose Set Thumbnail from Region.
5. In the browser that appears, enter a name for the thumbnail. It needs to be saved in your current project’s Thumbnail folder.
To set the thumbnail image for a clip
1. In an explorer, select the clip in the model’s Mixer > Tracks > Animation/Shape > Mixer_Trackn > Clip list folder.
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An easy way to do this is to select the clip in the mixer, then press f in the explorer. |
2. Right-click the clip name and choose Set Thumbnail.
3. In the browser that appears, select the appropriate thumbnail image.
To display clips with thumbnails
1. Choose View > Preferences from the mixer’s command bar to open the Animation Mixer Preferences property editor.
2. On the Clips page, select Show Thumbnails in the Clip Thumbnails area.
The image appears on the clip in the mixer. The size of the image is determined by the Thumbnail Size you can set in the Display preferences (choose File > Preferences and select Display).
- If a thumbnail contains a sequence of images, set the Display x Thumbnails For Sequences value to set the number of images to display. The thumbnails are computed at intervals based on the duration and number to display. If there is not enough room to display all the thumbnails, then none are displayed.
- If an image clip contains a sequence (.avi, etc.), you can display it by selecting Thumbnails as Sequences. The sequence is displayed using only one thumbnail that is computed from the current frame. Scrubbing the timeline updates the thumbnail image displayed.
Creating Custom Folders for the Mixer
Using the explorer, you can create your own custom folders within a model’s Mixer node. This lets you organize your sources and clips in a logical and hierarchical manner instead of having long lists of items.
To create a custom folder
1. Right-click the “parent” folder (such as the Mixer, Sources, or Tracks folders) in which you want to create a subfolder, and choose Create Folder.
2. Drag-and-drop items into it. If you like, you can create folders within the folder you just created. Items need to be the proper type (meaning clip to clip, source to source, etc.).
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