I'm using the instancer node with "reference" option to instance a bunch of animated references (not the "instancable reference" option due to buggy variants and disappearing geo), and need to offset the animations randomly. Cannot figure out a way though.

- The "retime instances"-node does not work if "reference" was selected in the instancer.

- Using a for-each loop with a "time shift"-node works but is extremely slow to use as it evaluates every frame.

- I'm also not able to use "edit property" to change the prototype "frame offset" in the reference node, as there is none in the USD schema.




I feel I am missing something obvious here? Is wrangle the way to go perhaps?

In the past, I have done this by making sure my animated instance was a mesh sequence. Then the task becomes constructing an s@instancefile attribute that references the files on disk. Each point can have its own temporal offset associated with it. Look that up inside the instancer, and construct your per-frame s@instancefile attribute based on that number and the current frame.

Interessting. Thank you.
However, I just discovered that this is a bug with 18.5. "instancable reference" work like a charm in 19 without buggy behavior. Does'nt solve my problem though as the show is using 18.5 so I'll look into it.