Looking for alternate slot machine-style scroll method.

[Simon Ubsdell]

Why would you need to repeat the images? All you should need to do is set up your animation so it loops back to the start of the group of three surely?

Simon Ubsdell

hawaiki

[Tangier Clarke]

Hello Simon. Perhaps it’s just something I haven’t figured out how to do yet. Just after I wrote the original post it just occurred to me that rather than clone my group of three images 5 or any number of times, I can just replicate the group in a line any number of times. I would still have to scroll the replicator group with the Y value.

How you go about looping the group playback in the way you’re describing?

Thanks.

[Simon Ubsdell]

Here you go:

13269_slotmachine.motn.zip

Simon Ubsdell

hawaiki

[Tangier Clarke]

Thanks Simon. I am looking at every group and layer, but can’t figure out where and how you are looping this. I see it happening in Group 2 animation keyframes (the repetitions), but don’t see anything in the inspector for any group or layer that eludes to repetition – no behaviors or timing adjustments anywhere.

[Simon Ubsdell]

Apologies. I thought this was something you’d already know.

You can loop any animation by going to the Keyframe Editor, choosing the animated parameter you want to loop and from the dropdown selecting After Last Keyframe/Repeat. (There are other options as well, as you will see.)

If you then want to convert that loop into an editable animation, you can select After Last Keyframe/Generate Keyframes – set the number of Cycles you want from the dialogue and hit OK.

So in your case if you want the rolling to come to a stop after a set number of loops you can do this and then adjust the last keyframe to bring it to a gentle stop.

Simon Ubsdell

hawaiki

[Tangier Clarke]

Ahh, no I didn’t know that. I did go into the keyframe editor and start checking out your keyframes, but didn’t go all the way to the sub menu where “repeat” is. Though the repeat process is automated. Is it possible to ease this automated process so that the slot machine stops? It’s simple doing this with changing the Y value of a group, but using this method it’s not clear how I would have the repetitions slow down from 2 seconds forward.

[Simon Ubsdell]

I gave you the instructions for the slowdown above, but here is a sample project which shows you the result:

13272_slotmachineslowdown.motn.zip

The steps are:

1) Set up your single animation adjusting the speed as required.
2) Use the Keyframe Editor to set up a loop after the last keyframe
3) Use Generate Keyframes to convert the loop into an editable animation choosing the number of cycles you require
4) Again set After Last Keyframe but this time select Constant (to create a hold)
5) Adjust the timing of the last keyframe to create a slowdown.
6) Adjust the animation curve of the last keyframe to ramp the animation to a gentle stop, using either Ease In, or Bezier for more precise control

If you want to land on a different image than the one you have used for the start/end, simply park on the last keyframe and drag it vertically upwards in the keyframe editor till you see the image you want. Holding down shift while dragging constrains the movement.

There are of course other ways of achieving this effect but I suspect this is the most efficient overall.

Simon Ubsdell

hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

Here for example is a very different method that uses Clones and a Replicator to create the array, a Sequence Replicator for the animation, and a Clone of the result that uses Variable Speed Time Remapping to create the slowdown.

This would probably the route to go if you were building a reusable template, but it’s quite a bit more complicated to explain and requires quite a few more steps to execute.

13273_slotmachinereplicator.motn.zip

https://youtu.be/X6PcQdq-Pvc

Simon Ubsdell

hawaiki

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Tangier Clarke]

Thanks a lot Simon. I was playing with those parameters before your post, but some things weren’t making sense to me. After your instructions I got the hang of it now and I understand what my confusion with Motion here is:

The “After Last Keyframe” option is fluid. That last keyframe changes depending on what was set in Generate Keyframes. I was looking at the last keyframe as always being the one I set manually and therefore anything I would do with repetitions or generating keyframes starts from there.

I still have a little problem with this. Generating keyframes does not acknowledge the first time that was set. So if I set the animation to repeat using 3 repetitions with the generate keyframes option, then I want to adjust that number of repetitions, that doesn’t work. That last keyframe is now the keyframe after the 3 repetitions already set and the option to generate keyframes starts at 1 again – meaning it will generate more repetitions from the last keyframe. It’s additive rather than cumulative from where the first animation was made.

I don’t think the way it’s setup in Motion is intuitive, but I know it’s just a matter of working with it more. Perhaps ideally I’d have the type of before/after last keyframe operation and generating keyframes in one pop up window along with what interpolation to do at the last keyframe. The latter not completely necessary being that one could just right-click the last keyframe and make the adjustment.

Thanks again though. I’ve learned something new that makes me more efficient and that’s most important.

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Tangier Clarke] “I still have a little problem with this. Generating keyframes does not acknowledge the first time that was set. So if I set the animation to repeat using 3 repetitions with the generate keyframes option, then I want to adjust that number of repetitions, that doesn’t work. That last keyframe is now the keyframe after the 3 repetitions already set and the option to generate keyframes starts at 1 again – meaning it will generate more repetitions from the last keyframe. It’s additive rather than cumulative from where the first animation was made.”

Simply delete the generated keyframes and run the process again with more cycles as required – it only takes a couple of seconds!

Simon Ubsdell

hawaiki