Blackmagic Forum

Hi, I wonder if there's an equivalent in Fusion that works like the sequence layers command in AE. I have to repeat the animation for several elements at different times. It would be great if a script or command help me to finish this task. How can I Trim in/out several loaders at once?



The mask animation is the same for all the loaders, the offset is different for each loader. is it possible to automate this process? Is it possible to use only one mask and offset the animation across the timeline for different loaders?

Jimmy Paez wrote:Hi, I wonder if there's an equivalent in Fusion that works like the sequence layers command in AE. I have to repeat the animation for several elements at different times. It would be great if a script or command help me to finish this task. How can I Trim in/out several loaders at once?

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The mask animation is the same for all the loaders, the offset is different for each loader. is it possible to automate this process? Is it possible to use only one mask and offset the animation across the timeline for different loaders?

I am not sure if I'm reading it right, but it seems like you're asking for two seperate things:

1) how to trim in/out for several loaders at once
- you can't - at least not without getting into scripting and even then I'm not sure
2) how to reuse/retime mask animation in a relatively simple way

I don't use AE so I don't know what 'sequence layers' does, but I think there's a good chance that you can feed the output of your mask into a couple of timespeed tools and use those to create the off-sets. There are also off-set modifiers that you could use, but that would be a little more involved.
I'd try the timespeeds first.

Sequence layers is a command that adjusts the in-points of several selected layers such that they're "staggered" along the timeline with a user-designated number of overlapping frames and animates the opacity of each layer such that they cross-dissolve.

There is not currently a Fusion equivalent that I am aware of, but it could be scripted.

A brief code doodle:

Code: Select all

overlap = 5 -- Get this from the user with an interface of some kind
now = comp:GetAttrs().COMPN_GlobalStart -- The global in point of the comp, from which
                                                                -- we'll start working

toollist = comp:GetTools(true, "Loader")  -- All selected Loader tools
prevTool = toollist[1]


for i, tool in ipairs(toollist) do  --Iterate over the Loaders
    timespeed = comp:AddTool("TimeSpeed") 
    if toollist[i-1] then
        TimeSpeed.Delay = toollist[i-1]:GetAttrs().TOOLIT_Clip_Length[comp.CurrentTime] - overlap + now
    else
        TimeSpeed.Delay = 0
    end
    dx = comp:AddTool("Dissolve")
    -- At this point you'd need to add a spline to the Mix control to perform the cross-dissolve.
    -- I don't remember how to do it off the top of my head.
    dx.Background = prevTool.Output
    dx.Foreground = tool.Output
    prevTool = tool
    now = TimeSpeed.Delay + overlap
end


If my thinking is correct, that should create a TimeSpeed for each Loader, delay it by the length of the previous Loader in the list (except for the first one, which gets a Delay of 0). Then it makes a Dissolve and connects it to the current tool and the Dissolve from the previous iteration (or the first Loader if this is the first iteration).

The animation of the Dissolve's Mix control needs to be sorted out, as does the UI. And obviously I haven't tested any of this.