this is a plead for a simple put very useful ANIMATION OFFSET option for XREFS and CONTAINERS. We are an archiviz firm doing a lot of commercial work, and are always tight with deadlines. simple functions like this can save A LOT of time. actually so much time we were already developing our own BLOCK ehr, CONTAINER, functionality.

animation offset would make it possible to have a single container look different (like windows and doors open in different positions) at the vary same time inside your scene. in short it would make it very easy to create a lot of variation, all resulting from a few containers. could work for cars, cloned people, plants etc. etc. even with different colors if the material is animated.

current workflow:
imagine f.e. a big hotel with 5 types of doors. sliding, pivoting. 2 panels, 1 panels etc. build up your model with containers for each type, and changing the details of the doors (design changes from the client!) becomes very easy. just edit in place and you’re ready. But in a real world presentation doors should be open. or closed. open 20%, 40%, 60%. create some variation for the image, also because you’re client asks you to. Now the only way is to copy the container a few times, create some variations, and replace the doors in your model. big hotel, so 1000+ of doors. takes ages, and just when you’re finished your client walks in with some design changes to the 5 basic types…

imaginary new workflow:
ok, so now imagine animating the 5 basic door types. simply animate them from closed to open. now select all container copies and use a VERY simple script to set our imaginary ‘ANIMATION OFFSET’ to a random value for each container; for foo in selection do foo.randomoffset = randomvalue. so much easier. Client walks in again with some changes, no problem. After changing the details of our 5 basic but animated types all doors and windows in the hotel are opened the same way as before. neat and simple.