Timewarp entire scene?

[perryharovas]

Hi all,

I have a client that needs to have me render a new version of my animation (instead of using timewarp in after effects or NukeX) that matches
the speed ramp edits they did in post.

This is a nightmare because of all the animated objects I have.

My question is this:

I have stored an action on all objects in the scene and loaded it into the animation mixer.
I right clicked and chose Time Properties
I went to TimeWarp
I enabled DO WARP

...and there is the problem.

How do I alter the curve to match the keyframes they have created to make the scene animate the same?
They gave me frames where they ramped, gave me the exact percentages that it was ramped, and I have all that but...
The problem is the curve in the TimeWarp Fcurve editor doesn't work in percentages at all, and no matter what I have done, I can't seem to figure
out how to convert what they gave me (for instance: 200% speed starting on frame 20, then 450% speed at frame 120, then 97.03% speed on frame 408, etc.)

Does my question make sense? Is there an easy way to timewarp my whole scene to match these speed percentages at the frames they gave me the list of?

Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to provide!

Perry

[Daniel Brassard]

The way I read your example is as follow:

From frame 0 to 19, 100 percent speed, no change to the animation
From frame 20 to 119, 200 percent speed over 100 frames. The original 100 frames of animation will be compressed into 50 frames (100 divide by 200 multiplied by the 100 original frames = 50 frames)
From frame 120 to 407, 450 percent. 288 frames are affected that will be compressed to 64 frames (100 divide by 408 multiply by 288 frames = 64 frames)
At frame 408 slow down the animation slightly (100 divide by 97.03 = 1.0306 so the next 100 frames would cover 103 frames approximately if you had that many frames to work with)

My guess!

Do you have to maintain the same number of frames for the entire shot?

[perryharovas]

Thanks for the reply Daniel!

You read it correctly, and yes, I have to maintain the same number of frames (in the speed ramped edited version), and the client WILL go frame-by-frame to make sure
it lines up exactly. They are that kind of client and very meticulous. Nothing wrong with that, just makes it all the more important that I get this converted exactly.

The timewarp window looks like this:

The timewarp window looks like this

and doesn't have a way for me to just put in a percentage.
I tried ICE, I tried caching the whole scene, I tried basically anything I could think of, and nothing seems to give me the exact percentages I need.

[NNois]

You can for example working in the animation editor at first on a null object. Use all the tools provided by the animation editor, the transform key button for example to compress by 200% etc.
When you have done that Compress all the curve to a 0-100 range, selct the curve CTRL+S, save and in the retime fcurve in your coumpound Animation editor clip select the curve and do CTRL+O, Load the curve ;-)

[NNois]

or you can use an ice tree.
Create two null
null1: who ramp each frame by one SIunit
null2: static
-in the ice tree you read the X pos of null1, there you use a muliply node, this is your percentage !, then you plug the output to null2
-there you plot the null2 X pos and you have your timewarped curve !

[perryharovas]

Thanks for the ideas NNois!

To clarify, your last posting, was it an extension of the first one, or a different idea?
If different, can I then use the resulting fcurve to retime the clip?

Thanks again for the help.

I am not new to animation, but I am mostly a render/model/lighter and retiming animation curves is just making smoke come out of my ears trying to figure this out!

Thanks again,

Perry

[NNois]

yes my last post is an extension of the first one letting ice doing the math VS doing manually in the animation editor.
but, i'm not in front of xsi and it seems my maths aren't good I'll test it rapidly

[NNois]

with an ice tree like that it works to create your curve, just animate the speed accordingly

[perryharovas]

Very cool solution!

Thank you SO much for going to the trouble of posting, and then carrying it out and screen grabbing it.
I really appreciate your help!

I will try your solution tonight.

Many, many thanks!

Perry