I have found that if you select the "Loop" check box in animator, which is a playback mode that repeats the animation continuously, it plays correctly within animator. when the animation is linked to a task in TimeLiner, however, the animation plays (and loops) BACKWARD. that's right. plays forward in animator, backward in TimeLiner.

after wasting a whole day, i have found that i can redo the keyframes for the animations completely backward- it plays forward in TimeLiner if you create in backwards in Animator! this is a completely repeatable process, and i have recreated it on 2 computers, with 4 different files, with 9 different looped animations, even using both the Manage and Simulate packages. all of them play the reverse direction in timeliner.

dare i ask for help?

By the way, this may be my first post, but i have using NW daily for 14 months, and NW 2009 daily since the day of its release.