Instanced Action Property Editor

 
 
 

| Generic | Clip Item Information

To display: Right-click on an action, shape, or layer clip in the animation mixer and choose Clip Properties.

For more information, see Modifying Action Clip Values [ Nonlinear Animation in the Animation Mixer ].

Generic

Instanced Action

Action Contribution to Blending

Active

Whether the clip contributes to the animation. Muting and unmuting a track changes this option for all clips on the track.

Weight

The relative weight of the action clip when it is mixed with other clips that affect the same parameters or clusters at the same frames.

Fill Controls

The Fill Controls are used only with action clips. They are ignored for shape clips.

Fill Action

Whether or not the clip is a fill action. Fill actions determine parameter values only when there is no non-fill action driving particular parameters. They can be used to set parameters to reference values between action clips. Fill actions are not mixed with other clips. You can set this option quickly by right-clicking on a clip and choosing Set Fill.

Fill Priority

Sets the priority of the fill action. If two fill actions drive the same parameter at a given frame, the one with the higher priority is used. You can also use the Weight Mixer Panel to set this value.

Clip Effect

These options are used only with action clips. You cannot create clip effects for shape clips.

Active

Activates or deactivates the clip effect.

Pose Active

Activates or deactivates the pose offset.

Time Reference

Controls whether or not the animation on the clip effect parameters is extrapolated when the clip itself is extrapolated (cycled or bounced).

  • If you select the Original Clip option, the clip effect is repeated in each instance of the extrapolation (for each cycle or bounce).

  • If you select the Extrapolated Clip option, the clip effect spans the entire extrapolation.

For example, you can do a walk cycle and then use the offset effect to move the hand. If you select the Original Clip option, the hand movement applies to each cycle instance; if you select Extrapolated Clip, the hand movement spans the entire cycle.

Clip Item Information

Shows the clip effect expressions rules that modify the parameters in the action clip. When an action clip is instantiated, this tab initially contains the rules of the active value mapping template.

When you add an entry in the Clip Effect column, you automatically create a clip effect.

For more information, see Modifying Action Clips with Clip Effects [ Nonlinear Animation in the Animation Mixer ].

NoteChanging any information on this property page has no effect on shape clips.

Item

Click a clip item to select a row. There is one row for each animation channel (degree of freedom) in the action source.

Src

The index of the animation item in the source.

On

Toggles the activeness of the corresponding animation channel. Items without a check mark do not drive parameters.

Destination

The parameter affected by the clip effect expression.

Xfo (transformations)

Items with this option active are calculated when you create a pose offset. The Xfo is set per object, not per parameter, so activating Xfo for one parameter may activate several. If you have any values set in the Clip Effect column (a clip effect expression or an offset effect), these are applied after the pose offset is calculated.

Clip Effect

An expression that defines how the parameter value is modified. When you enter an expression here, a clip effect is created. If this is blank, the parameter is unmodified. You can type any VBScript expression in this box. In addition, you can use the following tokens:

  • this. The original parameter value. Lets you create offsets of the original value, rather than a new value entirely.

  • cid. The cycle ID number. If you have cycled an action clip in the animation mixer, the original clip has a cid of 0, the first cycle has a cid of 1, and so on. This lets you continuously increment or decrement a value based on the cycle, for example, so that a car moves forward with every wheel rotation.

  • time. The current local time of the clip's source, in seconds. If you cycle or bounce the clip, the values in the first cycle are repeated in the second, and so on.

  • frame. The current local frame of the clip's source. Again, if you cycle or bounce the clip, the values are repeated. Note that this is always an integer, even if the clip has been scaled and offset.

  • gtime. The current global time of the scene.

  • gframe. The current global frame of the scene.

  • weight. The current mix weight value of the clip.

  • custom parameter name. If you have created a custom parameter on the clip, you can access its value by using its name in the clip effect expression for any item.

  • param. The item's effect variable at evaluation time.

  • iwarp. The item's effect variable as a warp for using the original value.

  • warp. If you have created a custom parameter on the clip called "warp", using this name in the clip effect expression of any item causes the source item to be taken at a time dictated by the warp parameter.

Edit Clip-Specific Data

Opens the expression editor or a constraint property editor as appropriate for the selected row. Expressions and constraints are stored locally in each instance of a clip; function curves are stored globally in the action source and shared by all instanced clips.

Clear Fx

Deletes the expression in the Clip Effect column for the selected items. Select items by clicking on their Item# (or Shift or Ctrl+click to multi-select items, or click the Item column to select all items), then click this button.

Toggle Active

Toggles the activeness of the selected clip items. Select items by clicking on their Item# (or Shift or Ctrl+click to multi-select items, or click the Item column to select all items), then click this button.