Tools for Motion Graph and Keyframe Remapping

[Sven Media]

I don't know if there's a script for this but it would surely be much easier to reduce or increase the intensity of an action, if an animator can simply select the keyframes and scale the up or down depending on desired outcome i.e to increase or decrease the intensity of an action.

Similarly, to speed up or slow down a section/selection of keyframes, (I don't if there's a way to do this that I'm missing but) the animator should simply be able to select the desired keyframes and scale them in or out, on the timeline, to speed up or slow down the action dictated by the selected keyframes. Basically simplifying animation remapping by adding tools to control intensity and speed.

[chucky]

like

[Greenlaw]

The way I typically control animation velocity in Moho is to set up a Smart Bone Dial (SBD) to control a whole animation. Then I can keyframe the rotation of the SBD to affect the timing of animation keyframes. I use this when I have many duplicates of the same animation in one project and I need each of them to be playing at different speeds, variable speeds, and maybe even different temporal directions.

This works great when the animation I'm controlling isn't too complicated but I can see how this can get unwieldy to set up a full scene with multiple characters and other complex animations.

Just thinking out loud but It would be super handy if a velocity graph control could be applied to, say, a group, so that a single envelope can be used to retime all of the keyframes of items inside that group.

[Sven Media]

Thanks for the suggestion Greenlaw. Sounds pretty complicated though.

I come from blender and the way it works there is super simple and very intuitive (to me at least).

Want to ramp up speed - in the timeline, select keys, use location of playhead as an anchor point from which to scale the animation in or out.

Similarly to increase an action intensity (make an arm swing action rotate more or less in either direction, for example), you select the keys, scale on the y (in the graph editor) and done.

That said, I have been experimenting and I found a way to increase the speed of a selection of keys. You select some keys, hold 'alt' and drag (I wonder why this is not included in the manual or a video on the official YouTube channel).
My only problem with it is that it scales from the first key on your selection. I think it would work better if it did so from the playhead instead.

[chucky]

I like how ALt stretch works Sven, but I know what you mean.
The super easy solution is to just add a key at the play-head (even freeze all), you do need a key to stretch from anyway, right?

[Greenlaw]

The super easy solution is to just add a key at the play-head (even freeze all), you do need a key to stretch from anyway, right?

Yeah that's what I do in Moho: Freeze All at the head and tail of the range I wish to scale. I may add other Freeze points inside if the retime is going to be more complex. This also locks the animation outside of the range from getting modified. (BTW, I often do this in other animation programs I work in, like Maya for example--it's just quick and easy for me.)