retiming vrayMesh (vray proxy)

[djx]

Is it possible to have some control over the speed an animated vraymesh plays?
I know about the playback speed in the animation parameters, but if I set the speed to 0.1 for example, it seems to just hold frames, but I want inbetweens (like when I slow down a cloth cache).
I notice that an expression feeds into the vrayMesh currentTime, but changing the expression seems to make no difference.

thanks
David

[vlado]

If you want smooth interpolation between the frames, you need to export velocity information as well when you create the proxy. Not sure if it will be immediately visible in the viewport, but it should work fine in the rendering.

Best regards,
Vlado

[djx]

Thanks Vlado.
Yes, I can confirm that if I export velocity info with interval 0 to 1 then I can lower the proxy playback speed and get smooth interpolation in renders, but not in the viewport.

[djx]

Is it possible to control proxy playback by animating the vraymesh "currentFrame" attribute? I'm trying, but it seems to be ignored.

edit: I think I figured it out. If I set the animType to "still" then I can animate the "animOffset".

edit2: Spoke too soon. Using "still" and "animOffset" only works if I do single frame renders manually in the vfb. If I batch the render (even doing it frame by frame) it ignores the animOffset animation.

What I'm trying to do here is populate a scene with proxy animations that I want to be able to offset, loop and change the speed of using either anim curves or expressions. So far the only thing I can get working is simply slowing down or speeding up using the proxy playback speed. Is there some reason why the other attributes can not be animated?

thanks
David

[vlado]

The currentFrame attribute is there just to let Maya know that the proxy depends on the current animation time. It does not affect the actual rendering in any way. You should be able to change the offset/speed through expressions though, but even if that doesn't work, it would not be too hard to write a MEL script that randomizes e.g. the offset for a number of proxies.

Best regards,
Vlado

[djx]

Thanks Vlado. I'll look into that.

[Bob White]

Hey guys, I'm trying to do something similar. We're working on a show that has thousands of insect robots in it and we've currently got a driven walk cycle for them that we're driving with an expression based on speed and direction of travel. While I understand that while it's not necessarily the intention of a vray proxy, it would be amazing to be able to have exported the cycle as a proxy, then have full control over the animation time within maya. Right now, we can offset the time, reverse it, speed it up and slow it down, but it would be way more controllable if we could just drive the actual input time of the proxy. Just thinkin it might be something worth looking at implementing down the road.

Thanks,
-B

[vlado]

Yep, I'm keeping that in mind

Best regards,
Vlado

[djx]

Bob explained it so much better than I did. That is exactly what I'm looking for too.

[flat]

I am suffering from the same problem as Mr. David.

Is there a way to variably change (animate) the animation playback speed of Proxy in the scene?
(Gradually slow/fast, etc.)

All keyframe animation to "currentFrame", "PLayBackSpeed", "Start offset" parameters are ignored in BatchRender.
In the view the animation speed change is displayed.
It is not reflected in Batch render. The vrscene exporter does not support it?
(checked V-Ray for Maya version 3.60.03)

Is there a solution?

[flat]

No solution in the current version?
I would like to hear the opinions of developers.

Thanx.

[vlado]

We are looking into it still, will let you know as soon as we find anything.

Best regards,
Vlado

[flat]

Thanks for comment.

look forward to future Improvement !!

Best wishes,

[ralenekov]

The fix is included in today's stable nightly build.

[flat]

Thanks for the report!

I will test it.