Timeline & key framing issues

Timeline & keyframe seems to have issues. I've only been doing animations for a couple months, but feel like I'm finding a few odd default behaviours.

1. Timeline playing only runs to the end of the screen on the right hand side then loops, missing the remaining take. To play a full take of 10 seconds you have to manually scroll as it plays... so it doesn't reach the end of the screen. Or Manually scroll past the 4 seconds and push the play button. Seems odd behaviour.

2. The default time line length is 4 seconds across my display, if I adjust the take length to 2 seconds the timeline will automatically adjust for length to 2 seconds, if you now change the take length back to 4 seconds.. it doesn't re-adjust the timeline back to 4 seconds across the display.

3. In some rare instances I get more than 4 seconds along the display, sometimes 10 or 15 seconds, but I don't know how that happens. I can't find any thing in preferences or in the interface which you can change that default behaviour of the timeline.


3. When doing key-framing on positions, scale, rotations selected.... positions and rotations don't hold if you do changes elsewhere along the timeline. I have tried tactics like doubling up on a keyframe to lock in either end, but if you do a complex character animation like a juggling scene, positions, rotations end up altering slightly from their original positions even when you haven't change either of the end points along that part of the timeline. It seems like it is not holding position or rotation. Every time I do a new animation, I look at my workflow to see if I'm missing something.

If anyone can pinpoint where I'm going wrong... I'd be grateful. I'm using C3D version 7.3b2
 
The only discrepancy is the length of the take which is 10 sec and the set of the scroll-bar which is set to 4 sec. All adjustable on the fly of needed.
2. ?
3. Make sure to keyframe/enable the right parameter - especially when dealing with hierarchies: blue icons.

Cheers
Frank
 
If I bring an FBX animation which has a keyframe of say 14 seconds, the 14 seconds will show across the display. If I open up the JAS version of the same file, it will only display 4 seconds.
 
Sure it is: Click&drag from the end for instance.
scrollbarextend.gif
 
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* or at the start
* or click in the middle and slide it
* it is often useful to test render just a short section of a longer tape to check some detail. That way you can just squash the active slider to, say, 1 second, move it a critical part and run a 30 frame (or less) render of this specific section of the long take.

* Suggestion for newbies:
* I (and a few more C3D users who use animations frequently) have found it useful to customise the layout for the bottom panels dealing with key framing. This makes it much easier to synchronise the F-curve / keys to the existing time line.
Screenshot 2018-11-12 at 13.39.59.png
 
Helmut & Frank,

I'm having a issue trying to get my juggling pins to appear attached to the hand as I rotate back and forth.


ezgif.com-resize-5.gif


One requirement is I need to make everything as single mesh. I then bone everything up including the juggling pins. I have been able to create juggling scenes. But finding it really hard to synchronise the bowling pins with the hands. If you have iOS 12 device you can view the whole juggling scene @ www.fusionar.app its the first gallery item on the page.


This is what my mesh/bone structure looks like.

screenshot.png



For each object say - bowling pin 5 - I create a pose with a bind pose to start. Then create a new pose for each major frame I transition to. So for swivelling from left to right. You create a pose for each. I then keyframe in those across say 1 second. In this example I have 7 main objects that all transition 5 x bowling pins, 1 wheel, 1 clown. The difficulty is getting the transitions smooth between the key-framing. The only way I found you can make the bowling pin look attached to the hand... is micro-correct every transition point for the swivel. It seems like a lot of work and probably not the way to do this. Does this make sense?


sceenshot2.png
 
If you want the pins just moving with the hands attache them simply to the corresponding joints - that´s all.
Handheld.gif
Handheld.png

Cheers
Frank
 
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A more difficult problem would be if you want to start juggling…

One option there is to use a parent constraint ('attach the pin to the hand as if it were a child') which you turn off at the moment the pin leaves the clown's hand. Another if to have a different pin being juggled and toggle the visibility of the pin in the clown's hand OFF and the visibility of the moving pin toggled ON at that moment. The down-side of the second approach is it would break motion blur.

Attached is a simple example of a "catapult" arm which throws a ball that acts as if it is constrained to the arm until the moment the arm's motion is arrested.
 

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  • catapult.jas.zip
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I do want to juggle.

Your first solution required a separate mesh. That separate mesh doesn't export well to DAE, FBX which I then have to further convert to glTF (scaling issue). I also have another restriction, I can only use a single animation group. Which is a second reason to have only single mesh

So I need to find a solution using only a single mesh for my scene.

The 2nd solution with the catapult, also exports with 2 separate animation groups, so again its not a solution I can use.

I have these limitations at the moment at least, which is frustrating.
 
As you can see, I have the clown juggling a bit. The problem only arises as you make the animations more complex, additional keyframes can sometimes affect previous ones and it turns into a mess which is hard to correct.

I did notice in my poses, I had rotation, scaling, position all selected. I also noticed, if you create a pose with just a rotation, but later add a pose with a position component, that position gets an f-curve going back to 0 seconds.

If the C3D is bug free..... hopefully it is a simple case of playing around more in f-curves until I find a way to do key-framing that has better synching.

juggling_clown.gif
 
I found a way of making sure the object stays attached to hand. You need to go into a top view and just keyframe each increment of the entire arch.

Thanks for all your help.
 
Hey just want to thank you guys with the those great tips yesterday. I'm learning heaps from the forum here. One important tip was in directly from Helmut, he posted a screen shot showing how he uses his 4 tiled views, made a huge difference for me, made boning up characters and getting the animation more synched. I created this USDZ animation from scratch today, really happy with it. Its only 2.3 MB file size as a USDZ file. The animation is about 10 seconds long. Created with 1 mesh & 1 skeleton. Works perfectly in AR Quick Look.

 
Yep, pretty fun stuff ash72! Thanks for sharing. I haven't played around with any AR stuff yet. Maybe one day.
 
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