Cycle. Voodoo or misunderstood?

[Tiziano]

Do you mean that you want to loop a portion of the timeline?
If so, try page 920 of the v9 manual.

Also, C4d comes (came?) with a COFFEE called 'Infinate Rotation.' I don't remember where it installs but I keep mine in the Object folder of the Library. Anyway, attached is a modified version that spins in the h axis, once per second at 30fps for 5 seconds and then stops. Move the COFFEE tag to your object and keyframe 'Enable' to start and 150 frames later keyframe 'Enable' off to end.

If this works for you, great.

[mikeh64]

are you in R10, or something earlier?

if you are R10 - maybe you could find an answer in the "before" and "after" settings in the track attributes

[JoelOtron]

If you have mograph--you can just throw a time effector on it and it will spin infinitely (the effector default is set to rotation)

You can also use xpresso-- tying in the time node with the objects global rotation port.
I'll see if I can find the preset file I made a while back when I get a chance. Think I used the range mapper to control the speed of rotation.

If you are using 9+, then you would just loop the frames--but not sure how to keyframe loops in 10 (just started usinng it)

PS--I know how you feel--its Saturday--youve got a deadline--and nothings working for you
--your not alone :)

[Troyan]

Sorry, I am in R10. It would help if I said what I was working with :). I know there are workarounds, I'm just wondering if anyone has gotten the Cycle feature to work. It has changed since R9 and I'm not talking about the Repeat function for After on the track attributes. If you do a search for Cycle in the new help system that comes with R10, you'll see what I'm talking about. You can't loop anymore like in R9 since the timeline has changed.

[LucentDreams]

hmm works fine for me select track, go to Keys menu and choose cycle set number of times you want the entire track to cycle and if you want it to offset and click OK. Only do it to entire tracks though.

[JoelOtron]

Hmm--see what you mean.

If I have 2 keys in my cycle--0 and 359, it copies the frames but the last frame is canceled out with the first one each time.

ie:
frame 0 = 0º
frame 30 =359º

Apply the cycle to the track so it repeats 3 times:

frame 0 = 0º
frame 30 = 0º
frame 60 = 0º
frame 90 =359º

Thats what I got at least when I tried it.

You can also select the track and switch the "after" selection to "repeat" in the AM. WOuld be really great if you could just enter the # of repeats there. I suppose there was a reason why that didnt happen.

[JoelOtron]

hmm works fine for me select track, go to Keys menu and choose cycle set number of times you want the entire track to cycle and if you want it to offset and click OK. Only do it to entire tracks though.

When I select just the track (in this case object-> rotation->rotation H)--nothing happens at all. It only is working if I select all the keys as well. And then the result isnt what I would expect.

[LucentDreams]

hmm dunno what mdoe your in, but when I select tracks is selects all keys on that track.

[JoelOtron]

Yes--I wasnt clear--select the track--keys are slected too.

If I select the track, go to the key menu, select cycle with a value, NOTHING happens. Nothing.

If I DONT select the track--just the keys, and then select cycle as I did before, new keys are created--but all the values are "zeroed" out by the value of the first key--only the very last generated key has the correct end value. It doesnt work.

Are we all on a mac? maybe a mac bug?
If its a user error--then its very surprising why this should be so hard to figure out.

[unseenthings]

Yes--I wasnt clear--select the track--keys are slected too.

If I select the track, go to the key menu, select cycle with a value, NOTHING happens. Nothing.

If I DONT select the track--just the keys, and then select cycle as I did before, new keys are created--but all the values are "zeroed" out by the value of the first key--only the very last generated key has the correct end value. It doesnt work.

Are we all on a mac? maybe a mac bug?
If its a user error--then its very surprising why this should be so hard to figure out.
I'm getting a lot of the same results... it's very, very picky as to when it actually creates those cycles, and when it does, they're not correct, as you stated above. I'm on Windows, same results in R10 regular and 64 bit versions. There's got to be a bug or some special trick we're missing... am I not clicking hard enough? :-)

[JoelOtron]

Here are some shots showing the process

http://www.betatronstudios.com/en/Picture%2010.jpg

http://www.betatronstudios.com/en/Picture%2011.jpg

http://www.betatronstudios.com/en/Picture%2012.jpg

[JoelOtron]

OK figured it out.

Seems that cycle works fine if its anything BUT 360º rotation.ALSO--needs to be more than 2 keyframes in the sequence.
The cool thing about the pre-10 looping function, was that it was a true loop--it would repeat the sequence as many times as you need it to--without having to prep your keyframes in any way.

With the cycle method, you have to bring the value back to 0 again once the first cycle is complete. So--if you want your last frame to be 359º, then you have to add one more frame after that set to 0 again. THEN the looping cycle works.

http://www.betatronstudios.com/en/Picture%2013.jpg

http://www.betatronstudios.com/en/Picture%2014.jpg

[MJV]

Trying to understand the problem here. If I make an rotation animation with two keyframes, the first at 0 and the second at 360, select those keys, choose cycle and activate the offset option, I then get a perfectly cycled rotation for however many times I want it.

[MJV]

Ah, but cycling without the offset option active doesn't work right. That looks like a bug.

[LucentDreams]

can you please try it in the Fcurve view guys? I reported a bug where it behaves differently in key view than it does in fcurve. are you at least getting the right result in fcurve view?

[MJV]

I get the wrong result in both.

[LucentDreams]

on PC or MAC. Even with offset it seems work fine.

needless to say we are finding this command to be inconsistent and buggy.

[MJV]

Offset works here fine. I think the issue may have something to do with the fact that a key can't be two values at once. If your first key is 0 and the second is 360, then when it tries to cycle from 0 to 360 the second time, the second key is set to 0. So you 0-0-360.

[JoelOtron]

Offset works here fine. I think the issue may have something to do with the fact that a key can't be two values at once. If your first key is 0 and the second is 360, then when it tries to cycle from 0 to 360 the second time, the second key is set to 0. So you 0-0-360.

Yeah--thats it (what I was trying to show in an earlier post). It actually mention this I think in the Help entry--that the keys get overidden by the original first key value. But its limiting when needing to do rotation cycles.

[JoelOtron]

I also have to say--since we're on the subject of bugginess--that I have CRASHED a number of times when using the powerslider.J After adding kfs in the powerslider, then just clicking around in my timeline (no commands--just clicking on screen) I get random crashes.

And on an unrelated note (related only in that I've been keeping the HELP window up while I work this stuff out), clicking on the help browser window--(selecting type, specifically) has also caused me to crash several times. This is on different macs with different installs of R10 also.

(I'll forward to maxon)

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