Cut and move parts without having to retime everything

[mystd]

I have some parts in my animation that are kind of boring and I decided to cut them out. I've tried to do this with the sequencer but it wasn't much use. Is retiming everything the only option or how can I accomplish this. If everything fails I'll just cut it out from the rendered videofile but that might end up pretty ugly.

I have 4 characters doing a ton of stuff and like 100 layers if I have to cut the audio and retime everything it would take me 2 to 3 days.

[Greenlaw]

It depends on your scene setup and where you've placed your animation keys, but there are a few options for doing this.

The first is Sequencer. It's the easiest method, but as you've noticed, it has its limitations. I tend to use this when I need to quickly offset copies of looping animations.

For more specific re-timing, you can consolidate the layer channels into a single line of keys and change the timings there. You can do this individually for each character, assuming each has it's own bones layer. I prefer this method when I've pretty much finished the animation and just want to speedup/slowdown certain sections. You can do this for non-character/non-bones animations too but it's really more useful when there are many channels and keyframes involved, as in a character rig.

Finally, you can select multiple layers and display all the channels for each selection at the same time (Moho 12 only.) This way, you can select keyframes across several layers and re-time them altogether. If it's too much data, you can simplify it by consolidating the channels of each layer. This can be very useful for non-bones layers because those keyframes exist in separate layers.

Hope this helps.

[Greenlaw]

If you're just cutting out chunks of a rendered sequence, and the cuts aren't disrupting the flow of the animation, you should do this in post, like in a video editor.

Some media players will let you do this too, and then re-save the edited movie.

[mystd]

I tested cutting it out of the render but it doesn't fit. I'd have to change parts to be able to cut it out. Since all the options I have mean a lot of work I guess I'll just add in something interesting to make the boring parts more watchable.

I've been redoing so much I'm getting really fed up. It's just a 50sec animation and I've been working on it for 3 weeks now. At least I've learned a lot animating everything. I'll start to plan out my animation from now on and otherwise it's a ton of work....

[Greenlaw]

Are you creating everything in a single scene file? Unless the animation absolutely must be a single continuous scene, you may be creating a lot of extra work for yourself. It's much more efficient to create shorter segments of animation in separate scene files and edit them in an editing program. This is how most animators create their short films, music videos, and longer format works.

But even if your animation is one long continuous scene, you might consider breaking out the scene into multiple passes using Layer Comps, and compositing the results in a compositing or editing program. This will allow you to focus on passes that need work and leave the 'good' animation alone. Also, rendering individual passes tends to go much faster than re-rendering a scene with all the layers enabled, over and over again. It makes it much easier and quicker to output revised versions of your animation.

This reminds me of a handful of 'Call of Duty' commercials I worked on years ago. The commercials were each typically about 20 seconds of 'uncut' first person POV combat action, with hundreds of characters, animated vehicles and props, a large environment, and tons of visual fx. These commercials were not created in a single animation file though. Rather, once we got our camera choreography worked out, we were able to break down the action into 80 separate animations so different artists could work on different sections. As the animations were completed, it was all assembled in compositing to create a 'single' continuous animation. So long as each animator used the same camera motion and marked positions, everything fell perfectly in place.

On a much smaller scale, I did the same thing with Anime Studio in the Hearts Like Fists titles on our website. There are a few scenes in the animation that appear to be long uncut sequences but these were actually animated using three or more separate scene files that shared the same camera motions. Breaking it down this way not only simplified creating the animation, it allowed me to animate and render the scenes on a small laptop with limited RAM.

I know this info doesn't help much at this stage since it sounds like you've mostly finished with the animation, but it might be something to keep in mind for your next project.

[Greenlaw]

...I'll start to plan out my animation from now on and otherwise it's a ton of work....

Yes, there is that.

Animation can certainly be a lot of work, so you definitely want to approach larger projects with a plan. Mistakes can be costly, in time if not money, and a good plan will help you avoid mistakes.

For future reference:

A traditional workflow reduced to the essentials is Storyboard > Animatic > Animation.

IMO, the animatic is the most important step towards finishing a production. The animatic is basically a blue print for the entire production. If you're not familiar with the term, an animatic is a version of your movie using panels from the storyboard, and it typically includes dialog and sound fx tracks (even if it's just a temporary track). It can help you lock down your scene timings before you begin animating anything. Once the animatic is completed, you can output the individual scenes and audio as background clips for reference in your animation files.

When you're satisfied with the animatic, then animation is basically checking off items on a shot list. You'll find that nearly all of the guesswork for figuring out what to include in your scenes and how it all fits together is eliminated when you have a good animatic.

I know some artists may argue that planning hurts spontaneity of the creative process. That's nonsense. It's easier and cheaper to be spontaneous and creative in the pre-production stages (writing, storyboard, design,) and planning makes it more likely that the project will get done. IMO, proceeding without a plan is asking for a lot of headaches and frustration.

[mystd]

The Storyboard plus Animatic would have definitely made my life easier. But I also changed and added a lot because I got better ideas or I didn't like something. The video is one big loop with static camera and characters "interact" with each other. I'm not sure how I could have split it up. When it's finished I'll be sharing the render and project files with everyone anyway, maybe I can get some suggestion then.

[hayasidist]

Totally agree with Greenlaw here --

IMO the planning phases are the only time to make significant changes. This, IMO, illustrates just how important planning is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_(2 ... evelopment It's a bit of a stretch to say that it was nearly 75 years from concept to production (initial idea in 1940) but the version we see started life about 5 years before it hit the screens with actual animation "just" in that last year. It's easier / quicker / cheaper to incorporate "better ideas" when the drawings that need to change are only on storyboard panels.

and that's true even when it's just a 2 minute film with (say) 20-50 shots.

[BrahRah]

My animation is done: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30001

I also changed my nickname don't get confused XD

[Greenlaw]

Okay...I have to admit...it made me laugh.