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  • Published 24 Aug 2020

Instanced Keyframes for Grease Pencil

So that cyclical/repeated frames are easier to edit and result in a lighter project file.

I know there is a time offset modifier that can do this at the oject level, but this will be easier to work with and will be useful within individual layers.

My proposed usage is: In the dopesheet, instead of Shift+D to create a duplicate of keyframe, you press Alt+D to get a linked/referenced duplicate of the keyframe.

Thankyou.

75%

Development Status: Open

Upvote 3 Downvote 1

Duplicates

maildileepnow
24 Aug 2020

9 Comments

tomasz.brain

Would very much appreciate this addition if the instances can be drawn in - the changes propagating to all other instances.

Instanced keyframes make it much easier to create seamless straight-ahead animated loops (flames, running water, columns of bubbles)

  1. You set up a bunch of empty keyframes, as many as you need for your loop
  2. copy the empty set as instanced keyframes twice, or more, after the original set.
  3. animate each element straight ahead. as you wrap around to the first instance again you'll see the content you drew before. just keep on animating the element you're working on. when you've added all elements you need you have a seamless organic looking loop.
1
maildileepnow Author

* @tomasz.brain * Exactly. Edit any instance and it should reflect in all other instances.

alexmehler

Its also important for character animation if not more. Its also a staple feature of every 2d animation program(tooboom, retas, clipstudio, etc.) and a standard technique for 2d since the old disney days.

Its not just an addition but a must have feature before everything else really.

alexmehler

Its also a staple feature of every 2d animation program(tooboom, retas, clipstudio, etc.) and a standard technique for 2d since the old disney days.

tomasz.brain

I've added a proposal for the Time Offset Modifier for handling some of the same use cases (creating seamless loops). Though real frame instances would be more flexible. blender.community/c/rightclickselect/q2gbbc/

jack.herbert

This proposal is exactly what I thought when I started doing more complicated greasepencil animations but now, I changed my mind, because of 3 reasons:

  1. The time offset modifier works very well for looping and can be restricted to specific layers and frame ranges. For things like lipsyncing combining it with a driver ends up being a much nicer workflow than copy/pasting frames around the timeline.

  2. Even tho it takes time to learn, using actions and the NLA editor is the way to go for more complicated animations. Moving or looping an action strip is a lot faster than selecting a bunch of keyframes

  3. Most importantly, whilst Alt+D for keyframes seems like a natural extension to Alt+D for object, it would be an entirely new concept in Blender and I think that would require a lot of work for it to be implemented without breaking other stuff.

tomasz.brain

* @jack.herbert * The Time Offset modifier can loop frames you've created, but doesn't currently help with the creation of frames that loop well . Keyframe instances would help with that. Alternatively, here's a proposal that would improve the Time Offset Modifier for this use case too blender.community/c/rightclickselect/q2gbbc/

maildileepnow Author

* @tomasz.brain * I would still like to see instanced keyframes because you can resuse any keyframe in any order, not just as loops.

If I use the time-offset modifier and I moved around the original frames in the dopesheet, I would have to go change the frame ranges in the modifier also.

It may or maynot be easy to code but it will be very handy for the user and a plus for Blender.

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tomasz.brain

* @maildileepnow * i agree.