Offset parent animation

[amanandink]

Hey All

I have a question that I though the collective brain of the forum might be able to help with, I have a scene with 50 or so wheat stalks blowing int he wind and I want to animate one stalk and reuse it for all the other but each one is offset by 5 frames from the next so it looks like wind blowing through the field of wheat. but I cant get the animation to reuse and offset at the same time.

I have used the parent bone script, to animate a master layer for the movement then sync every subsequent lower wheat layer to that, and that works fine for replicating the animation and making changes quite quickly but I cant offset this parenting. Moving the sequencer has no effect, the bones still mirror exactly.

The other method I have is to animate one bone and save the animation out then load it back in to each separate bone layer, again about 50 in each line with about 5 lines of wheat, a bit of hassle but works with the sequencer to offset the animation.

any suggestions or ideas about how to reuse and offset the animation or a script or a wing and a prayer would be gratefully tried out.

J

[heyvern]

You could try playing around with particle layers. Particles have a lifetime, and each particle can have animation. This would be a way to have your field of wheat blowing with the same animated stalk. You would have to experiment with the height of the emitter and the lifetime, number of particles etc.

[amanandink]

emm interesting, like the grass tutorial. I guess I know what I'll be doing during lunch now.

not sure it will work for the director, he has a very specific design to the wheat in mind but I will certainly try it out and see how it goes. Thanks Vern

J

[slowtiger]

Stuff like this I do with cycles usually. I animate one element (with whatever technique, bone or point), set the last key to cycle, then duplicate this layer as often as I need, and shift them in time.

To avoid a boring result, I often change the timing of the duplicated animation or make the cycle a bit shorter. I may have 2 to 5 different "source" animations now, from which I duplicate.

What helps a lot is to have the original cycle already include 2 or 3 cycles of different length, like long - short - looong. I can easily change these lengths in the duplicates. This gives a quite organic result.

You can do the same with video files. Render out 1 cycle, then re-import it. In the duplicates, change the playback speeds - voilà, instant nature.

Don't forget to not space the duplicates too evenly - have clusters, vary their sizes as well (for wheat, set the point of origin to the stalk base - before you duplicate!).