Maya Animation Question

[BashCrumblejaw]

Is it possible to import something into maya onto a different start frame?
For example....say now i have made a little animation with emitters and transform and attribute keys right!.....now its impossible offset the whole animation as a group....(because essentially that is all i want to do...is to offset the animation by a couple of seconds in the time line)
So can i RE-IMPORT the whole scene and 'trick it' so that everything including the emmitters and everything to start on a later frame....????
So i do not want it to start at frame 10, but rather everything must start at frame 150.
Does any one know how to do this?

[BashCrumblejaw]

Is it possible to import something into maya onto a different start frame?
For example....say now i have made a little animation with emitters and transform and attribute keys right!.....now its impossible offset the whole animation as a group....(because essentially that is all i want to do...is to offset the animation by a couple of seconds in the time line)
So can i RE-IMPORT the whole scene and 'trick it' so that everything including the emmitters and everything to start on a later frame....????
So i do not want it to start at frame 10, but rather everything must start at frame 150.
Does any one know how to do this?

[SirRon]

You can use the dope sheet to adjust all keyframes.

Window>Animation Editors>Dope sheet

In the dope sheet window go to 'view' and make sure the "Scene Summary" is checked so you can see all the keys in the scene.

A new "Scene Summary" line should appear, then you just select all of them and middle-mouse click drag to move the keys where you want them.

[sreedhar3d]

even i was trying to do like this thanks for asking this question Tombigbee

one more time thanx to SirRon

[BashCrumblejaw]

Hey Sir Ron



Thanks so much for your help!!!
I tried it, but it still left some keys behind...Things have been crazy here....so i apologise for responding late!!!
It works but not the exact way that i wanted.....because some of the material keys arent seen for some reason...

So i figured out a way in the Graph Editor.......

I just took off the Auto Load Selected objects....and then i selected all the animated objects...and also seleceted the materials by pressing SELECT on the attribute editor of the attributes animated for that shader, and then constantly pressed add new selection in the Graph Editor untill i had all the keys for the scene...

Then i made a bookmark of all those keys..

Then when i imported it into a new scene i just selected the bookmark and Shift Selected the Items in the left menu of the Graph Editor and then i would have all the keys :)

So that worked out easier for me!!
Thanks so much!!!

[nemriddle]

To avoid hunting around for stray keys and hiden animation I find it usefull to create control curve for all of them. Usually on a global or root control for my character I will create extra attributes and set driven key to all additional things that that I want to animate, such as texture swaping and visibility, color, material effects, etc. Anything that you can key in Maya can be added to your control. It take a few extra minuts durring the rigging process but saves a lot of time durring animation when I want to change my timing all I have to do is grab all the curves in my scene and all the keys are there.

There is also a script on HighEnd3D.com called neil's MEL_Pak_ and it has an animation offset that will shift all animation in a scene however many frames you want. This script has helped me out in the past before I started the rigging process described above.

Hope this helps.

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