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282 Chapter 12: Animation
For example, 2:16:2240 represents 2 minutes, 16
seconds, and 2,240 ticks.
Setting Time Segments
Theactivetimesegmentspecifiesablockof
working time. You might think of it as a window
in time that you use to focu s on a specific part of
your animation.
Specify i ng a n Acti ve T ime Segment
Youspecifytheactivetimesegmentbysettingthe
Start Time and End Time for the segment on the
Time Configuration dialog (page 3–768) .
You c an change the act ive time seg ment w henever
you want without affecting the keys you’ve already
created. For example, if y ou have k eys scattered
over a range of 1000 frames, you can narrow
your active time segment to work only on frames
150-300.
Changingtheactivetimesegmenthasthe
following effect:
• Restricts the range of time you can access using
the
time slider (page 3–748) .
• Restricts the range of time displayed when
using the animation play b ack buttons.
Thedefaultsettingfortheactivetimesegment
runs f rom frames 0 to 100, but you can set it to
any range.
Youcanalsoincreasetheactivetimesegment
using the
track bar (page 3–750) .
Rescaling the Active Ti me Segment
YouusetheRe-scaleTimebuttononthe Time
Configuration dialog (page 3–768)
to change your
entire animation ba sed on the active time s egment.
UseRe-scaleTimeasfollows:
• Scaleallanimationintheactivetimesegment
tofitwithinanewtimerange.
• Move the entire animation to a new t ime.
Click Re-scale Time and then enter new Start Time
andEndTimevaluesontheRe-scaleTimedialog.
WhenyouclickOKalltheanimationintheactive
timesegmentismovedandscaledtofitthenew
StartTimeandEndTimesettings.Anyanimation
outside the active time segment is moved to match
the new ac tive t ime segment boundaries.
For example, say you have an animation from
frame0toframe300andanactivetimesegment
start ing at fr ame 100 and ending at frame 200. Use
Re-scale Time to set the new Start Time to frame
200 and the new End Time to frame 250. Clicking
OK gives you the following result:
• Animationintheactivetimesegmentmoves
for ward 100 frames and shr ink s to a length of
50frames.Thenewactivetimesegmentisfrom
frames 200 to 250.
• Animation in the frames preceding the original
active time seg ment moves for w ard 100 frames
to connect to the start of the new active time
segment.
• Animation in the 100 frames after the original
active time segment moves for ward 50 frames
to connect to the end of the new active time
segment.
You can als o rescale the ac tive time segment using
the
track bar (page 3–750) .
Moving Through Time
You c an move to any time in your active time
segment by using either the
time slider (page
3–748)
,orthe Current Frame field (page 3–767) in
the time cont rols area. You can also move through
time using the playback control buttons.