Working with Time Editor clips

After you create a Animation Source, and bring it into the Time Editor, it becomes a clip on a track. A clip, which is the animation building block of the Time Editor, is an instance of the source. This lets you create unlimited clips from a single Animation Source. When you modify a clip, the Animation Source is not changed. However, if you modify the Animation Source, every clip that refers to it is affected.
Important: When an Animation Source is being reused elsewhere in the Time Editor, all instances of its title are italicized. This is to help you avoid modifying the clip if you modify an Animation Source clip in a composition. Be careful not to open the Graph Editor and move a key on the animation, or you will change the source animation.
To create a version of an Animation Source so you can make edits to, right-click the clip and Make Animation Source Unique from the Time Editor clip contextual menu. This lets you make the selected Animation Source independent from its originating clip.
Think of clips as containers that hold animation or audio on a track. You can have multiple clips on a track but they must be all the same track type, that is, animation or audio. See Time Editor Clip contextual menu for a list of operations you can perform when you right-click a clip in the Time View.
Tip: You can customize the default color of clips and tracks in the Color Settings Preferences. See Change user interface colors.
Note: The smallest size a Time Editor clip can be is 8 pixels. You can change the default clip size in the Minimum clip width field in the Animation (settings) Preferences.
Note: Special symbols appear at the trimmed or expanded edge of a clip to show the state of the animation contained inside. See Time Editor clip symbols for more

Animation clips

Animation clips are the building blocks of the Time Editor. Think of clips as a collection of animation curves for a keyable object, such as a character, camera, object, material and so on. If you can keyframe it, it can be an animation clip. See Edit Time Editor clips.

When you create an Animation clip in the Time Editor, ensure that you have select the object's complete hierarchy. You can select simple animated objects from the viewport, but if the object you want to create a clip from has any related attributes, such as a character rig, use the Outliner.

To create an animation clip from a simple object or attribute

  1. Select the object/attribute in the viewport or Outliner.
  2. In the Time Editor, select File > Add animation from scene Selection > from the Time Editor menu bar to open the Add Animation to the Time Editor options.
  3. In the Add Animation to the Time Editor options, specify settings such as the clip name, where the animation to is to reside, what animation you want the clip to contain (for example, keyed or constraint animation), and the animation clip length.
  4. Click Apply and Close. A clip is added to the Time Editor.

You can select simple animated objects from the viewport, but if the object you want to create a clip from has any related attributes, such as a character rig, ensure that you activate the Include Entire Hierarchy option in the Add Animation to the Time Editor options to import all the currently keyed elements. If you object has keyable elements that are not animated but you want to include in the Animation clip (for potential animation later) also activate the Static (i.e. edited but not Keyed) option.

Expand a clip's hierarchy
Note: While expanding clip hierarchies is done in the Track's Roster controls, it is considered a clip operation as it shows the associated keyframes.
You can view a clip's hierarchy, exposing the keyframes in the animation.

To expand a clip's hierarchy

  1. Click the arrow next to the clip name. In the Roster controls, a new series of hierarchy arrows appear, colored the same as the selected clip.
  2. Expand each arrow to progress through the selected clip's animatable attributes.
Change a clip's color

Pose clips

A Pose clip is a single-frame capture of an object or attribute state that you can use to create animation. You can blend Pose clips with transitions to create animation.

To create a Pose clip, click in the Time Editor toolbar.

See Create animation from Pose clips.

Audio clips

Audio clips are green in the Time Editor Time View.

To create an Audio clip, select Clip > Audio Clip from the Time Editor menu and browse for an audio file, or right-click the Track area and select Audio Track from the Time Editor Track contextual menu.

Drag audio clips in from the file browser to add them to the track.
Note:
  • Only .wav and .aiff formats are supported by the Time Editor.
  • Maya's response time can be slow when you make multiple edits to an audio clip. This is because a node is created in the Node Graph for each cut section of the clip, which causes the Evaluation Graph and Playback Cache to rebuild. If this slowdown occurs, disable Cached Playback .
  • You can only hear audio playback in the Time Editor when the Playback Speed is set to 24 fps x 1 (or Real-time). To do this, right-click the Maya Time Slider to access the Animation Controls menu.

Clip Layers

You can create layers on Time Editor clips, so you can modify the existing clip animation. See Add Clip Layers to the Time Editor and Animate on layer clips. They behave similarly to Maya Animation Layers but are exclusive to Time Editor clips because you cannot drive Time Editor animation with both Animation Layers and Clip Layers as this creates conflicts.

Layer clips have a Clip Layer icon next to the name. Click this to expand the Layer view.

You can create a Clip Layer the following ways:
  • Select the layer clip and click the Create Override Layer or Create Additive Layer icons in the Time Editor toolbar.
  • Right click a clip and select Create Override or Create Additive from the Clip Layer contextual menu.
    • Note: If a clip is created from a driven object, a layer clip with all the driven Attributes is created by default.
The "Create Layer Clip" dialog box appears, letting you name the layer clip and add the object's attributes to the layer. Use the options to import only attributes or animation of these attributes.
Tip:

To key on a Clip Layer, select the Layer so the Active Clip field in the Time Editor toolbar displays the correct layer, or right-click a layer clip and select Set Active Layer. See Key on Clip Layers. The active clip layer is outlined in red.

You can group-select multiple Clips/Group clips and/or the appropriate scene objects and create a Layer clip.

Drag a Clip Layer in the track view to rearrange them. Remember that reordering clips affects clip evaluation, which is also dependent on the blend mode and weighting. Right-click a layer to set blend modes and merge layers in the Clip Layer contextual menu. You can also edit a layer's attributes.

See Add Clip Layers to the Time Editor.

Note: Be careful to use only the attributes you want an Override layer to drive, otherwise objects on your rig may be unintentionally pinned. Whenever you select a part of a character rig to create an Override layer, you create new animation based on the current pose; any inadvertently-selected nodes included with the layer will appear pinned at the current frame. See Animate HumanIK characters in the Time Editor for more on Override and Additive layers on HIK rigs.

Group clips

A Group clip is clip made up of many clips packaged together to which you can apply edit functions. Shift- or drag-select to grab clips, and click Create Group icon on the Time Editor toolbar or select Clip > Group from the Time Editor menu bar.

Click the arrow on the Group clip to view the contents. For how to create a Group clip, see Combine clips into Group clips.

You can import FBX files with multiple takes into one Group clip. See Import Multiple Takes in the Time Editor.

Note: Grouping a clip does not mean that you no longer have access to the clips inside the Group. See Edit Clips inside a Group.

Once you create a Group clip, you can move, scale, copy, loop, and create transitions for it. The position and any transitions, clip effects, etc. you applied to the individual clips inside the Group remain intact.

To ungroup a Group clip, click , or select Clip > Ungroup from the Time Editor menu bar.

Related Topics

Topics in this section
Parent topic: Time Editor