All language subtitles for 6. Using the TimeClip Node

Now let's talk about a non-destructive way of trimming and slipping clips,

and we're going to do that by using a node called the TimeClip Node.

So I'm just going to go into the Node Graph,

I'm going to hit Tab, and I'm going to drop down a TimeClip Node.

I'm going to connect it up to the MasterreadNode

that we had from the previous clip,

and I'm going to go over here to the Dope Sheet,

and I'm going to hit one on the keyboard with the

TimeClip selected to put it in the Viewer,

and then I'm going to navigate over to the Dope Sheet.

The first thing we see is that the TimeClip is set to the frame

range that's present in your Project Settings.

So if you hit S on the keyboard,

it'll bring up your Project Settings in the Properties menu,

and if you scroll down, you see it says frame range 1 to 200?

Well that's where it's getting this 200 name from.

So we can go back to our TimeClip by double-clicking on it,

and see the original range says it's set between frame 1 and 200,

and it's just pulling that data from these project settings.

I'm going to go ahead and close that.

So I'm going to go ahead and set this value to 100 because

it's the clip that we're dealing with,

and I'm going to set the frame range to 100,

just to shorten this TimeClip up to match the clip that we'll be modifying.

You'll notice now if I go back to the beginning of the timeline and hit Play,

we're still dealing with an animation that takes place between frame 1 and 100,

and then it's over.

So nothing's really happened yet, we've just lined these two things up,

but what I can do now is I can modify these TimeClip settings in the

Dope Sheet and they will have effects on the Read Node without

actually changing the data inside the Read Node.

So if I want to TimeClip this by 25 frames and just bring

this in like we did in the previous clip,

and I want to shorten this by 25 frames,

and I wind the timeline back to the beginning,

now all we're going to get are those frames in the middle,

because we trimmed off the 25 frames at the

beginning and the 25 frames at the end.

Likewise, the same way we learned before,

you can go down here until the icon becomes a little slip,

and we can slip those ranges around,

and even though it looks like we're changing that Read Node at the bottom,

we're just changing the content inside of the frame

range between frame 25 and frame 75.

So if we want the backend of the animation,

we're going to get that icon and slide the clip until the back frame

lines up with the back wall of the TimeClip Node.

If we rewind, those first 25 frames are clipped,

and now we're looking at the back 50 frames of the animation.

Now if we go back to the Node Graph,

we can view the MasterreadNode by highlighting it,

hitting one on the keyboard, and sending it to the Viewer,

rewinding the animation, and taking a look,

and you see none of the data inside the Read Nodes changed.

But if we highlight the TimeClip,

hit one on the keyboard to put it into the Viewer,

all of our changes are present.

So that's a way that we can just trim or slip the data inside

of this Read Node without modifying it, and that's powerful because,

again,

you just really don't want to modify any of the raw data that you're

given inside of the nodes themselves; you want to pass them into

separate operations so that anybody working with you can see what

you've done and can see the modifications in a clear and easy manner

in a non-destructive way.

So that wraps up the module on the Dope Sheet.

Next, we're going to be taking a look at the Curve Editor,

and the Curve Editor enables you to edit curves without physically

entering information into the Properties panel,

and it gives us a much more intuitive,

much more playful way of dealing with animation.

It's a lot of fun and I hope you join us in the next module.