Time Offset param and Time Loop Layer

The layers structure of my animate file:

Inline Canvas Layer
  |_Time Loop Layer
  |_Star Layer
  |_...

And I’ve setup a Time Offset parameter for Inline Canvas Layer, but the Time Loop Layer doesn’t take it into account. It has to be adjust according to the Time Offset value of the Inline Canvas Layer

Is this normal behaving?
When I doing this setup, I expected Paste Canvas Layer can encapsulate Time Loop Layer as well.

Example file?
-G

Attached is a modified version of Time-loop sample file downloaded from wiki page, What I did is encapsulating all the layers into a Paste Canvas Layer, and set its Time Offset to -5s.
Now, play the animation, the Regular Circle starts to move at 5s as expected, but the Looped Circle begins at the first frame. Is it reasonable that I expect the Looped Circle starts at 5s too?
Time-loop-demo-0.2_timeoffset.sifz (3.27 KB)

Yes, the looped circle achieves a repetition loop from link time to end of time (-inf) and from link time to start of time (+inf).
Do this:
Restore the Offset Time of the outer encapsulate layer to be 0f. Now edit the document settings and expand the start time to say, -10s. You can see that the circle loops too backwards. So why when you offset the whole composition would make stop the looped circle? It loops already forward and backward.

This is how I ‘read’ Time Loop Layer:

Time loop layer repeats what happens between Link time and Link time plus duration. That will happen form local time to the end of times. Also it will repeat backwards what happens from link time minus duration. That will happen from local time to starts of times. Symmetric just makes the loop symmetrical, because the thing that happens at link time minus duration could not be the same than from link time plus duration.

Confusing indeed. I hope this helps.
-G

1 Like

Look the attached example:
here is the expose sheet of what’s happening. In this case I’ve unchecked the Symmetrical option.
Link time=120f (5s)
Local time = 48f (2s)
Duration = 6f
The left number is the original and the one on the right is the looped one.
Look at frame 120 (the link time):
For original number:
From frame 120 to frame 125 (link time to link time + duration-1f) the sequence is: 2, 4, 5, 19, 1, 7: total number of frames = 6 = duration length.
From frame 114 to frame 119 (link time - duration to link time -1 f) the sequence is: 3, 15, 14, 11, 7, 16: total number of frames = 6 = duration length.

Now look at frame 48 (the local time):
For looped number:
The first sequence is repeated from frame 48 (local time) to end of times.
The second sequence is repeated backwards from frame 48 -1f to start of times.

If checked Symmetrical, then only the first sequence is repeated forward and backwards.
I hope this don’t hurts so much any brain :slight_smile:
-G

[code]frame 36: 4 , 3
frame 37: 19, 15
frame 38: 8 , 14
frame 39: 10, 11
frame 40: 2 , 7
frame 41: 16, 16
frame 42: 4 , 3
frame 43: 4 , 15
frame 44: 8 , 14
frame 45: 8 , 11
frame 46: 1 , 7
frame 47: 14, 16
frame 48: 8 , 2
frame 49: 10, 4
frame 50: 15, 5
frame 51: 14, 19
frame 52: 16, 1
frame 53: 3 , 7
frame 54: 14, 2
frame 55: 8 , 4
frame 56: 11, 5
frame 57: 13, 19
frame 58: 19, 1
frame 59: 5 , 7
frame 60: 11, 2
frame 61: 6 , 4
frame 62: 16, 5
frame 63: 14, 19

frame 113: 18, 7
frame 114: 3 , 2
frame 115: 15, 4
frame 116: 14, 5
frame 117: 11, 19
frame 118: 7 , 1
frame 119: 16, 7
frame 120: 2 , 2
frame 121: 4 , 4
frame 122: 5 , 5
frame 123: 19, 19
frame 124: 1 , 1
frame 125: 7 , 7
frame 126: 16, 2
frame 127: 2 , 4[/code]
time-loop-example2.sifz (1.04 KB)

Thanks Genete, It takes me time to get the idea of time loop layer :slight_smile:
I still don’t fully understand that I am sure. I have to practice more.

So once a time loop layer applied, the animation it effected will be loop in the whole timeline, that means you will always get the sub-animation looping in your whole animation, unless you setup a set animated values for Link Time, Local Time and Duration. This is called breaking loop as described in wiki.

In other words, Time Offset does effect Time Loop Layer in my case, but because it is an endless loop, there is nothing I can see from my final animation.

Right, Time Loop layer parameters can be animated… That really hurts brains much more! :open_mouth:

Right
-G

Indeed, it hurts brains. but it gives a great power and flexibility to aniamtors :mrgreen:

After more reading and practices, I almost get it at the moment, I hope I will not be confused again.

Big thanks.