3ds Max how to animate multiple object at once with delay ?

Peksio

Hello. I would like to ask You for Your help with my animating problem. I do not know much about animating so i really don't know how I should google it.

I am looking for a way to animate big amout of objects with some delay. I have many cubes. In frame 1 I want to move cube "A" by 1 unit.
In frame 2 I want to move cube "B" by 1 unit to match cube "A".
In frame 3 I want to move cube "C" by 1 unit to match cubes "A" and "B" etc. etc.

I ofcourse know how to do it by hand but when I have 100 or 1000 cubes then it is pretty overhelming for me     ( I would also like to be able to do it random (random cubes coming 1 unit up))

How can I speed up this task ? What should I look or google for ?

Thanks and Cheers !

monster

Search the 3ds Max help for Presets and Offsets feature. Also, you could try Offset Controllers.

I made a gif showing Presets and Offsets feature.
[edit] 3ds Max minimized at the moment of truth, so the gif looks like it ends early. You need at least 3ds Max 2016 with updates for this feature. [/edit]

monster

Presets and Offsets also supports random delays.

Zhalktis

If you're stuck with an older version, you will likely have to do it with script controllers and some helper scripts to control their values en masse.

You can have time offset on the variables you define in your script controller.

Alternatively, you can use "at time x" in the script controller's body (slower performance, but more versatile). This would allow you to put an offset track as a custom attribute on a cube, take value from that track and use it as "at time" offset in the script that follows an object.