Keyframe Animation on Referenced Items

Keyframe animation is not possible on referenced items unless those items are animated using the Story tool. You can animate the items within the source file prior to it being referenced and the animation will play as expected.

To animate the referenced items, you must create an animation track in the Story tool, set its contents to the referenced items, and enable its keying ability. This is possible because the animation is stored in an external FBX file according to the normal Story tool behavior.

For example, consider a scene that contains a file reference object as shown in the following figure.

The following code sets NS:Cube, NS:Cube 1, and NS:Cube 2 to be the contents of an animation track.

lNSCube = FBFindObjectByFullName( "Model::NS:Cube" )
lNSCube1 = FBFindObjectByFullName( "Model::NS:Cube 1" )
lNSCube2 = FBFindObjectByFullName( "Model::NS:Cube 2" )
lFolder = FBStoryFolder(None)
lAnimTrack = FBStoryTrack(FBStoryTrackType.kFBStoryTrackAnimation, lFolder)
lStoryClip = FBStoryClip( {PathToYourAnimClip}, lAnimTrack, FBTime(0,0,0,0) )

lPropDetail = lAnimTrack.PropertyList.Find("Details")
lPropTravellingNode = lAnimTrack.PropertyList.Find("TravellingNode")

lNSCube.ConnectDst(lPropDetail)
lNSCube.ConnectDst(lPropTravellingNode)
lNSCube1.ConnectDst(lPropDetail)
lNSCube2.ConnectDst(lPropDetail)

lOptions = FBFbxOptions( False )
FBApplication().FileSave( {SceneFilePath}, lOptions )

The animation is setup correctly after the scene is reloaded.