After animating a character or object with keyframes or motion capture, you can collect its animation data into a single, editable sequence. This animation sequence is called an animation clip. While you may create animation clips in a specific order with a specific storyline in mind, nonlinear animation refers to the process of moving, rearranging, manipulating, and blending those clips to produce a new series of motions.
In Maya, there are two types of clip: source clips and regular clips. Maya preserves and protects a character’s original animation curves by storing them in source clips. You do not use source clips to animate your characters. Instead, you use copies or instances of source clips called regular clips to animate your characters in a nonlinear way. See Animation clips.
Moving, manipulating, and blending regular clips to produce a smooth series of motions for a character is the basis of nonlinear animation. In Maya, you manage all these aspects of a character’s nonlinear animation using the Trax Editor. See What is the Trax Editor?.
You can also use the Camera Sequencer, which lets you lay out and manage camera shots, then produce rendered movie footage of the animation in your scene. In the Camera Sequencer, shots are represented as a set of rectangles arranged on tracks, and you define and manipulate which camera is active at any point in time by manipulating the camera shots. When you’re satisfied with the layout and timing of camera shots, you can playblast movie clips of the animation.
