Animating a cycle with a perfect start and end transition + offset principle

Hello dear Simply Maya,

I've struggled with this problem for a while now and it's been hard ever since to take out the "snap" that shows when the end frame goes back to the starting frame without any interpolation.

Usually what I do is make both frames linear so that it slows out and slows back in again and then I make the cycle one frame shorter, but the snap is still visible.

Since I've learned to use the offset principle this has been getting a lot harder now.

Of course there is the traditional way of fixing this by using the frame-by-frame technique (which I'm fond of when 2d animating). Although it gets on my nerves to be unable to use the nice curve system our 3d animation software includes. Plus I am a huge fan of smooth interpolation and love to animate in a correct fashion to use stuff like slow-motion or have my work be easily editable.

I have two questions concerning this matter:

1. How do you pull this off? What is your way of getting smooth transitioning in a cycle's end and start?

2. Is there maybe a script or plug-in that aligns the end and starting frame as if they were connected?

Unity has a button that is called "Loop Pose" which matches the end and starting frame automatically so it should be possible to have the same in Maya but then editable.

I've seen a trick used where the animator creates instead of 1 loop, 2 or 3 loops as 1 to counter (or cheat) the snap that occurs rendering it almost invisible to the viewer's eye (even though we see right through it).

https://youtu.be/8ET7TPq70uc

Though this is something I really want to avoid.

Thanks for reading and wish to hear soon from my fellow animators.

- David

Animating a cycle with a perfect start and end transition + offset principle

Solved! :D

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