Duplicate objects in animation w/o copying their coordinates

feldarzt

Let's imagine I want a few copies of the same object in the scene with animation. Maybe give each one of them minor adjustments. The objects do some size changes during the animation, and placing those keyframes for even one of the objects is super-tedious. Yet there are a few of them. So I'd like to copy them and place them into different places/coordinates. However, Edit->Duplicate doesn't really help because the duplicated objects are bound to the original coordinates in all their keyframes. Instances don't help either, mostly because of the same reason. 

So... How to keep the size changes but not the coordinates of the duplicated objects?

 

To simplify your understanding of the scene a bit (I know my language can get word-heavy sometimes), imagine a scene where a few assault rifles are being fired, and the objects in question are muzzle flashes changing their size between the shots.

Richard Haseltine

You could save a preset of some kind (pose, shaping, or proeprties depending on the type of property involved) for the shaping and then apply that to additional copies (newly loaded or duplicated and moved) items - you could use parenting with Parent In Place off to snap each of them to its target item.

feldarzt

Thanks for the idea, Richard!

Unfortunately, parenting with Parent In Place off (or on, doesn't matter) doesn't help, as the object simply jumps back to its "original" coordinates as soon as the timeline reaches the next keyframe related to that object.


UPD:
As a temporary solution, I limited the coordinate values of the duplicated objects to their first-keyframe ones. It seems to work so far, but I'm sure there is a better and more elegant solution.