Question Creating a seamless loop in Timeline with two animations

[Jocks3D]

I have a mocap animation in the @Acid Bubbles Timeline plugin of a model just moving around gradually like they're waiting for something. I guess you would call this an "idle" animation. But the very end body position of the animation does not exactly match the start. This means that on "loop" there is an annoying jump at the end as it starts over again. This is Anim 1.

To fix this I had the idea of creating a second animation (Anim 2) that copies all the keyframes in Anim 1 but I reverse them in Anim 2, so in theory if I play Anim 1 and 2 together I should have a seamless loop because the last frame of Anim 1 is the same as the first frame in Anim 2. Because this is an idle animation it shouldn't matter if the model is moving backwards, or so I assume.

My problem is that I can't figure out how to play Anim 1 and 2 together so that they play as a seamless loop until I stop them. Logically I assumed the "Play All" button in Timeline would well, play all of the animations I have loaded, but it does not. It just plays Anim 1 over and over.

I know there must be a way to link several animations together so they play as one but for the life of me I can't figure this out. Please help!

 

[Acid Bubbles]

@cs2022 Some options:
1. In the Sequencing screen, make your Anim 1's next animation to be Anim 2, and Anim 2's next animation to be Anim 1. That'll loop between one and the other.
2. Delete the last few keyframes and use interpolation to return to the initial position. That can be more work to get right, as you might need to add a few keyframes and adjust how many keframes you delete for it to look good, but that's how you can get the best result (hand crafted).
3. Make the same thing you thought of doing (Anim 1 and Anim 2 sequencing to each other) but don't reverse them, just make a longer blend time. This should be like a "loop to itself" but with blending!

 

[Jocks3D]

Thanks @Acid Bubbles. I forgot to mention that I did try this as a sequence but I still have the same problem, only Anim 1 plays even though I have it set to play Anim 2 (see screenshot below). There must be some other obvious step I'm missing to get both Anims to play one after the other. Eager to hear what that is.

 

[VamWizard]

uncheck loop

 

[Jocks3D]

uncheck loop

Forgot to mention I tried that and Anim 1 and 2 would play one after the other but if I hit stop then tried playing again only Anim 1 played. I'll keep experimenting but if @Acid Bubbles, @VamWizard or anyone else has a suggestion please share because this is very frustrating!

 

[yasparukko]

just use merge

 

[VamWizard]

Forgot to mention I tried that and Anim 1 and 2 would play one after the other but if I hit stop then tried playing again only Anim 1 played. I'll keep experimenting but if @Acid Bubbles, @VamWizard or anyone else has a suggestion please share because this is very frustrating!

Try starting the animation through a UI button trigger instead of clicking on the "play all" button, to see if anything changes. If for some reason it still doesn't work, I would use merge as suggested by yasparukko.

 

[Jocks3D]

@VamWizard and @yasparukko : merge? Where is merge? I don't see that anywhere. Just checked the Timeline wiki and I don't see anything about "merge" there either.

https://github.com/acidbubbles/vam-timeline/wiki

 

[yasparukko]

@VamWizard and @yasparukko : merge? Where is merge? I don't see that anywhere. Just checked the Timeline wiki and I don't see anything about "merge" there either.

https://github.com/acidbubbles/vam-timeline/wiki

Add animation screen

Advanced and intuitive keyframe animations for Virt-A-Mate - acidbubbles/vam-timeline

github.com

Merge with next animation
Adds all keyframes from the next animation after the current animation's keyframes.