Hi, it seems I always ask questions about ‘time-shifting’ topic,
but is there any solution to time-shift an .obj sequence or an animated .abc file (20 frames loop)
with clone to particle?
(as a tile-sheet feature with the point renderer works, but this time with animated .obj sequence or .abc?)
I have a flocking setup where I would like to use a fly-cycle starting when the particle born or with random starting frame. Mesh renderer with animated obj is not working. I have to use clone to particle, but then I couldn’t change or randomize the starting frame of the loop, all crows doing the same movement, I would like to shift them or randomize the starting frame.
Any idea would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
Ok, Ryan answered almost the same question almost a year ago, but it is still wound be nice to achieve…
Did you try to offset the starting point of each sequence in the timeline?
I’ve also dealt with a similar thing in the past and I could solve it by having different playback speeds on my sequences. They were quite long so over time they drifted further and further apart from each other in time difference. However, they did all start at the same frame 
Otherwise the best way might be to create different sequences yourself in the software they’re coming from.
If you clone several birds and offset the loop start and loop end points of each bird
you should achieve a randomized flock of flapping birds.
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Another way to offcet animation for cloner
Is to bake animation in to alembic and use 3D obgect node instead of imported 3D scene
Just turn on Use Point Level Animation check box and you will have simple animation offset slider.
Or you can save your animation in to .mdd. MDD deformer also have an offset.