Moho Forum

I understand that normally animation projects are broken up into individual files for each shot. My current project, however, consists of long shots that will go on for a full minute or more. In these shots the camera doesn't move. However, my background has a handful of cycles running, twinkling stars, a spinning planet, curtains gently swaying. I could just save the background as a template and then make my separate scenes, but where the scenes cut there would be a pop in my background cycles. What's the best method for breaking up my long single shot into manageable slices while ensuring my background cycles don't pop at the breaks between files?

1. Create your BG scene with all its cycles.
2. Create all other animation, each in its own project, and write down their frame count = duration. You'll end up with something like
240
130
305
105.
Add them up scene by scene to get the overall frame count:
240
370
675
780 and so on.
3. Open the BG scene and render a video file for each animation scene. Use the "from - to" text fields to input the correct frames:
1 - 240
241 - 370
371 - 675
676 - 780
4. Import these video files into their respective scenes.

I get it, thank you!

This makes me wonder though, could I just create a long background scene long enough to include all my action, and then import the individual foreground scenes on top of that?

Wouldn't recommend that, because you will end up with a HUGE file. Better to split work into small parts, and pre-render stuff wherever possible.

Got it, thank you!

What you could also do is import the cycling background into each scene and shift it on the sequencer to match where it ended for the last scene. You'd have to add up the durations like Slowtiger said, so you'd know how much it needs to be shifted for each scene.