How Exactly Do I Delete a Portion in the Middle of the Animation?


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By william.carey30 - 12 Years Ago
OK, so I made an animation of a woman walking around a pool, and I have it zoomed in a bit, so that she walks close by the camera at one point. This has her later disappearing off the side of the screen, then reappearing on the other side of the pool, which is fine, except that she disappears for approximately 9 seconds. So, if possible, I just want to chop out 7-8 seconds of the time she disappears. She's walking a motion path, if that matters. I've tried just going into the timeline and bumbling around, but without success.


Thanks,

Bill Carey
By wires - 12 Years Ago
You could shorten the time needed to walk the path by moving the end point back the required number of seconds in the Constraint portion of the avatar, you would also need to shorten the motion (walk) by the same amount.

Another method is to render the scene out and remove the unwanted portion in a video editing program.

By AverageJoe - 12 Years Ago
Or you could trim it in post processing, in a video editor. Or you could zoom the camera out a bit to keep the actor in scene the whole time. There's a myriad of solutions instead of trimming the motion itself. Imagine if you were filming a real person, what would you do? Most likely trim the clip in post processing.
By justaviking - 12 Years Ago
iClone does have the ability to delete frames from the timeline, but I would be very nervous about deleting something like part of a person walking on a path.  Even if it didn't break it, the person will probably walk twice as fast from Point A to Point B, so it will mess up your video.

I agree with Gerry (Wires)... At this point it's probably best to trim out the section using a video editor.

By justaviking - 12 Years Ago
wizaerd (10/8/2014)
Or you could trim it in post processing, in a video editor.

Good plan.  :)

Or you could zoom the camera out a bit to keep the actor in scene the whole time.

But do you really want 9 seconds of a person walking?  That could easily be a long and boring 9 seconds.

I struggle with it at times, and I've seen a lot of iClone movies with way too much non-value-added footage like that.

There's a myriad of solutions instead of trimming the motion itself. Imagine if you were filming a real person, what would you do?

Also could try adding another camera, so you see things from another angle.

Most likely trim the clip in post processing.

Yup.  Looks like we agree this is probably the best solution.  :)

Bill  --->  Do you currently use an video editor (a.k.a. "NLE" for non-linear editor)?  If not, now's a good time to start.  We can give you beginner tips on that if you'd like.

By thebiz.movies - 12 Years Ago
Another option to zooming out would be using the "look at" function on the camera and select your character. This will give the camera a "handheld" type of movement which can be a nice effect.
By justaviking - 12 Years Ago
@Bill,

To answer your "how to do it" question...

  • In the timeline, open the "Project" track.
  • Up at the top, DRAG across the frames you wish to select.
  • There are two or three icons with some vertical bars.  One will have a litle "X" in the corner.  That will DELETE FRAMES.

You can always try it and see what happens.  Be sure you SAVE your project first.  Maybe even do a SaveAs so you have a spare copy.  It's a slow process (both Insert and Delete frames take a long time), so be patient with it.

By animagic - 12 Years Ago
OK, this is a nice puzzle. How to do this just in iClone?

I would probably do the following:

  • Determine what part of the animation to remove. Let's call the begin and end points of that section A and B for reference.
  • On the timeline, place key frames on the Path track of the Character (select the Constraints tab, which includes the Path track) at points A and B. To insert a key frame on the Path track, increase and decrease the value of the Path Position parameter of the Character. This will create a key frame. For some reason you can't do that directly (or I don't know how).
  • In the Motion track, right-click the walk-clip you created and select Break at both point A and B.
  • Delete the track between the break points, and slide the rightmost portion to the left so that it touches the leftmost portion.
  • On the Path track select all key frames starting with the one at point B and any key frame coming after that in time (usually only the one at the end at Path value 100%).
  • Slide the selected key frames to the left so that the one at point B touches the one at point A.

The character's movement will jump in time. I tested it and it works. Doing it in a video editor is easier but not as much fun! :w00t: