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I would like to create an animation in which something blows up, starting at a normal speed, slows down to a stop, and then reforms. I know I can manually spread out the keyframes in the dope sheet editor (by spreading the keyframes farther and farther apart and then pasting a copy in reverse), but is there a way to do this automatically?

Example of distances between keyframes: 1,1,1,1,2,4,8,16,32 || 32,16,8,4,2,1,1,1,1 Where || is where the new keyframes end and I paste a copy in reverse order.

Doing it manually works when the speed change happens over a few frames, but if I want the process to extend over 60-120 frames, the process becomes both harder to correctly guess the distance, and it takes substantially more time. Is there something such as a way to edit keyframe distance in the NLA editor?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Please comment if anything is unclear.

Matthew D. Scholefield
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  • By spreading them parabolically, do you mean than the distance between the key frames is goverened by a quadratic equation? –  Nov 18 '14 at 01:51
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    why not use the graph editor? http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Animation/Editors/Graph –  Nov 18 '14 at 02:03
  • @SixthOfFour essentially, yes. So ie. Distances: 1,1,1,1,2,4,8,16,32 || 32,16,8,4,2,1,1,1,1 Where || is where the new keyframes end and I paste a copy in reverse order. I have updated the post. – Matthew D. Scholefield Nov 18 '14 at 02:13
  • @cegaton I'm afraid that only deals with interpoliating keyframes; not the distance between them. – Matthew D. Scholefield Nov 18 '14 at 02:16
  • You can use modifiers to create the cycle http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Animation/Editors/Graph/FModifiers –  Nov 18 '14 at 02:21
  • You could try to space the keyframes evenly and halving the speed of the motion with every keyframe, for example using the graph editor. –  Nov 18 '14 at 02:23
  • I can't seem to figure out how to use the graph editor with the cycle modifyer to gradually spread the keyframes. Are there any tutorials relating the graph editor to this? – Matthew D. Scholefield Nov 18 '14 at 03:37
  • have a look at this solution, it may help you. – David Nov 18 '14 at 22:10
  • I'm not suggesting using the graph editor for changing the distance between keyframes, but rather that you spread the keyframes linearely and instead cut the movement (i.e. distance travelled or angle rotated) in half with every keyframe. That could be done with the graph editor. –  Nov 19 '14 at 01:50
  • This addon works great, from that solution: click here – Matthew D. Scholefield Nov 19 '14 at 04:40

1 Answers1

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I made both a slow-down addon and a reverse addon. A combination of those two may be helpful?

How can I slow down or animate time?

How to reverse an animation?

EDIT

This is designed to help you with the result you are looking for, which is not necessarily parabolic.

Freddie R
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