Hi, Still deep in experimenting with Poser and trying to figure out everything before posting here and not miss the obvious. So, I've been struggling (in a gentle sort of way) to create an animation where a figure starts off sitting sideways to the main camera. All I want to do is make him stand up somewhat gracefully and smile at the camera. Then, I need to zoom in closer to his face. After that, I'll plugin a mimic pose and I'll be happy. I managed to get him sitting more of less nicely although he looks a bit uncomfortable to me. He hasn't complained though! I've tried many ways to get him to stand up. I add a stand up pose and suddenly he faces a whole different direction...so I translate and rotate him back in position. Hey hey, that keyframe looks good. But when I animate the most curious things happen. Sometimes his head looks sharply off to his right while one arm traces a graceful arc around his back (he must be quadruple jointed!), THROUGH his chest and finally back to the front. I've tried multiple poses, more keyframes and sometimes the end result is rather disturbing as well as amusing. I imagine y'all know what I mean. This is newbie stuff, right? Any general advice on keeping the body in the same place and orientation when I add different poses? I've also tried doing it all manually with lots of keyframes, translations, rotations and so on. My lack of experience shows up here although after a day and a half, I am getting better. Finally, if I ever do get a decent animation of him struggling to his feet (lol), how can I then zoom up to his face? I tried this once and the entire animation slowly zoomed...which almost makes sense but not quite. I've been reading tutorials, tips and tricks but I am missing something basic here I think. thanks, Steve

A) Turn off IK for the figure, and B) Go to the animation palette, highlight the entire thing, and make it Linear, rather than spline-based. Splines tend to do strange things that throw animators into fits until they're used to them (like setting facial morphs all the way to 3.000 resulting in a hideous monstrosity, when you simply wanted to move from 0.5 to 0.75) Hope this helps- if you haven't been doing that, you'll certainly find animating easier once you do.

how can I then zoom up to his face? To simulate zooming, you can set keyframes to change the camera's position or scale.

Thanks both of you! I haven't tried the zooming yet but the lack of IK on the legs (only ones that were set that way) and the turning everything to linear did wonders. When I added a standing pose, my figure kinda floated to his feet but I can add keyframes to fix that. But, much much better! Just gonna take time to learn the ropes. I hope y'all are patient with me.

I inserted a new keyframe at the end of my basic animation, moved the camera up close and ran through the animation. Then the entire movie from frame 1 "zoomed" out and then zoomed in until it reached the frame where I changed the camera position. Quite intriguing but not what I was thinking about. Not quite sure why changing the placement/scaling at one keyframe near the end of the movie affected the whole thing.

Everything is interpolated from the previous keyframe. Which, based on your description, would probably be frame 1. If you don't want the camera to start zooming from the beginning, you'll have to set another keyframe somewhere in the middle of your animation sequence.

You may find you have to delete some keyframes. Or even only certain body parts on certain keyframes. Just adding keyframes to fix oddities sometimes makes it worse.

That's why many of us avoid spline interpolation unless necessary; its results are difficult to predict.

Everything is interpolated from the previous keyframe. >Which, based on your description, would probably be frame >1. If you don't want the camera to start zooming from the >beginning, you'll have to set another keyframe somewhere >in the middle of your animation sequence. That's what I did...my animation is around 120 frames long and I changed it to 160, added a keyframe at 120 and another at about 130. At frame 130 (or thereabouts) is where I did the camera changes. I need to check spline interpolation since you mention it...I thought I had it off!

Try this.... Understanding what I am about to tell you will make your sitting pose a lot easier.

Start with a default character select the hip and rotate 70 degrees in the X rotation.

Now go to the figure menu - and uncheck both the right and left leg "Use Inverse Kinematics".

Now Zero (move the dial back to zero)the X rotation.
Notice the figure moves in the x axis rather than bends.
This is the key to getting the character to stand up without the crazy exaggerated movements that don't make sense.

---

After you have your figure in the sitting pose, set a key frame at frame 1

Now go to your desired ending key frame and before you start to pose turn the IK back on - on both legs.

Now raise the character from his hips until he is standing straight up.

Now set a key frame

This is a basic sit to stand animation pose. Now that you have this, you can then try to work on the in between details like moving the hip a little forward (at the start of the lift) to offset his balance and to simulate the stomach muscles doing the actual lifting of the body to an up right position. Or the arms pushing off of the back of the chair, etc.

---

Understanding the Spline editor will make a huge difference in making your poses look natural but it does come at the cost of a little bit of know how... It is not hard to master you just need recognize that motion generally moves beyond what you pay attention to.
Example move your hand like your are swatting a fly. Your hand does not just get to the destination and just stop. It actually passes the destination then comes back to where you initially wanted it to stop. (usually too fast to see more of a blur) This is one of the Disney dozen animation theories know as follow through. This is also the basic principle of a Spline animation interpolation curve. The curve assumes that you want anticipation (another Disney animation principle that starts a little in the reverse direction at the start of your movement, ) and the follow through at the end. The Spline animation curve does its best job of trying to Interpret (calculate) this for you.

Linear Interpolation:
If you have ever tried to animate an eye closing in Poser and you have the default Spline Interpolation curve on you will have noticed that the eye gets really exaggerated in the open and close positions, this is because it is not really appropriate to have anticipation and follow through on a blink. This is where you would use a linear Interpolation, giving you more of an exact movement.

---

BTW The camera movements work the same way with the Spline curve.
I recommend Un-checking the animation checkbox on your camera until you are completely finished with your poses then last animating the camera.

Also try experimenting with Focal and perspective. Perspective can give you some really dramatic results that really give your animation impact.

---

One last note a little plug for a soon to be released web site. Poserinstructionalvideos.com
All the things that were mentioned here are included in easy to follow video tutorials.
This stuff is so much easier to understand when someone is showing you rather than trying to just explain it.

Anyways, hang in there Poser has some amazing tools that are very much underrated.

Good Luck,
Christian
Producer Online Instructional Videos, Inc.

If you do not want stock pose files to turn the figure (and you should not) do not use hip to rotate the the figure on the Yaxis and do not use the trans dials on hip to position it on stage. Use BODY for both of these. Body dials do not get saved to a pose file, so additional poses will not rotate the figure from where Body has it. You use the rotations in hip to position the figure relative to the horizon with the hip front at zero to the front camera. Use the ytrans on hip to get it on the floor. Apply your poses to a figure, remove the values on the hip trans and any Universe Yaxis rotations and save the pose back to the library. Saving your scene as a PZ3 will preserve the Body position values.

Attached Link: http://www.poserinstrctionalvideos.com

Jagger, I don't mean to contradict what you are saying but your information probably will not solve the problem of trying to animate this type of pose. If you use the body rather than the hip the figure will loose control when you are trying to create the tween frames.

You should be using the hip.
By turning off IK and moving the hip it is the same thing as moving the body. The only difference is Poser knows how to keep track of body position relative to bend position and thus be able to tween (create the in between movements) when you set key frames like going from a sitting position to a standing position.

Moving the hip allows a character to move like a real human. Trying to get out of a chair without using your hip... It doesnt work. So to get a realist pose you need the rotation of the hip, generally in the X axis.

• One last note - most poses will work best when you start from the top of the bone structure in the hierarchy. Just like a human the hip/stomach is the center of body, in a 3D model the hip is the top of the entire hierarchy. Most body movements (minus arm movements, or from the neck up) will work best if you start with the hip and work your way down to the feet or in the opposite direction to the chest or shoulders. The positioning of the bones in this order is known as forward Kinematics. Taking advantage of forward and Inverse kinematics, I was able create an animation pose with the character moving from a sitting pose to a standing pose (using the technique I mentioned in my last post) in less than 30 seconds.

I dont mean step on your post Jagger, sorry.

Christian

I did not mean not to use the X or Z (or Y when you get to 90 and have gimbal lock). I mean rotationing like an ice skater - the universe Y axis. That defines which way a figure is facing. If a pose(1 frame pose) is saved with the hip at zero to the front camera, it can be used in any scene. Then BODY can be used to deterine the direction faced and position on stage. Does doing it this way cause a problem between key frames? I am just saying that everything internal to a figure should be saved as a stock pose. It should not include the stage position unless it is intended for that one single purpose. Done properly, clicking a series of poses, the figure loks like nothing so much as a worm on a spear, with the spear going through the front of the hip. But if you turn the figure with BODY Yrot, these same poses will not affect the direction the figure is facing. I certainly use the hip rotations - use them a a specific way. Always Xrot first - bend forward/lean back - then the Z or Y rot to roll to belly or back. Why? I have JCM that automatically add in gravity effects to the body parts that need them and unless the figure position relative to the horizon is done in a predictable way, the gravity morphs do not show the proper effect.

oooh, Jaagar, what you say sounds intriguing....SINCE my figure was sitting and facing right, when I applied a standing pose that faced forward, my figure naturally adopted a right facing pose since the body was facnig that way. IF I had rotated the body first...ok, I think I got the idea. I'll need to play with it now. ChristianB, thanks a lot! By going through your notes and experimenting, I actually got a reasonably smooth standup and I did it with no predefined poses, how cool! I am learning. I just got overwhelmed with everything, all the dials, all the movements. Your advice helped extremely. I'll be heading to your site. :) Now, I still can't get the zoom to work. I have my figure stand up, I add a jeyframe, move the marker another 10 frames and "zoom" up with my camera so the head and shoulders are visible. I add another keyframe there. I still get some scene movement from the first frame and I did check to make sure I have plenty of keyframes. For the heck of it, I added a keyframe 10 frames after my final position standing up, then 10 more frames before I did the "zoom" and added a keyframe. Not sure why the unwanted zoom is still happening. I'll continue to play with it. Thanks to all, what a great forum and great people. Steve