Hiya - I'm new to maya and am just trying out a simple animation.

But I was wondering if anyone would be able to explain how to achieve this:

As can be seen in the image - I'm animating a polytorus to move down the cone shaped vertical lines.
I'm keying the size and transform position, and also keying the selection radius in the attibute editor, so that the radius of the torus becomes progressively larger as it moves down the cone.

I then want to duplicate this torus object and copy and paste the animation key frames with a 12 frame offset - so that the final effect is a continuous movement of rings to give a black hole diagram effect. (like image number 3).

The problem I have is that although I can copy and paste the keys for transform and size fine in the graph editor. I'm unable to paste the keys in for the selection radius so that it has an offset of 12 frames.

It seems that when I duplicate an instance of the torus they share the same mesh, so I can't offset the keys without changing the original object.

I've tried separating and detaching the mesh, but this didn't work.

Would anyone know how I am able to key the selection radius of the duplicated object separately? (I can't duplicate a copy, as this means I no longer have the polyTorus node enabling me to key the selection radius?)

Sorry if this isn't phrased using the correct terminology, I've only just started to use Maya - I'll try to rephrase if this isn't clear!

Thanks in advance!