Newbie to Poser5, but not to character animation in general...

Can someone explain to me why, when cutting and pasting keyframes in the Animation Editor, "Twist" is not included? I'm loving animating (so far) in this thing, but I'm baffled by this one fact. If I've got any twist rotation applied anywhere to my character, I obviously don't get what I want. Toggling down the dials reveals that every other attribute gets copied if I copy the entire character, but "Twist" remains blank (unkeyed).

I figure there must be some logic to this, but what it is escapes me.

Thanks,
zane

Hmm, strange. Seems to copy/cut and paste okay for me in Poser Pro. Is this happening on every figure you try, or just one in particular? Also, are you c&p from the current dials or from the animation pallet. If from the animation pallet, it will only copy current key frames. First frame all dials are in key frame. Subsequent frames generally only key frame changes unless you use the all elements for the key frame, then all dial info will be included at that frame.

One other thought. Twist is not a default Poser value but a friendly name for generally yrot dial, but could be xrot or even zrot dial, depending on how the twist is aligned. Anyhow, if you copy a twist for something that uses yrotate for twist and paste it to a figure part at uses xrotate for the twist, then the paste will apply to the yrot dial not the xrot dial - hence no twist.

It happens to me too. Use morphs to get around it I think that will be your best bet.

Hmmm... well, maybe I'm not seeing things correctly, but under "Transform" for all joints in my character, I see "Taper," "Scale," "x/y/zScale", "Twist," "Side-Side," and "Bend." I could understand the Twist being applied to one of the three rotation axes, but as far as I can tell, these last three items -- twist, side-side, and bend -- ARE the x/y/zRotate parameters. It would make sense that "Twist" remain unkeyed if it was a convenience function, but then I would expect that value to be applied to the appropriate axis and the Twist value to zero out. As for bonnyclump's suggestion, how do I "use morphs" to get around it? Rather than keyframing, I make a pose a morph and apply that morph at a given frame? How do you make a pose a morph? (Sorry, newbie, as I said.) I think keyframing would do fine if I could figure out this whole "Twist" thing. Is Poser Pro older or newer than 5? I will clarify and say I'm cutting and pasting from the Animation Palette by selecting the whole character (top) and then pasting the whole character. And previously I've made a key for ALL JOINTS...I can see that the source Twist IS keyed....Just the Pasted version remains clear. Still baffled...

Poser Pro is the version that came between Poser 4 and Poser 5. I have Poser 5 and will check the c&p thing later to see if this is a new issue. For now, try this. Copy the settings in Poser as you have been, open a text editor and past the info you copied into the TE. Here you will see all the info being copied. Twist, Bend, SideSide are Poser Dial friendly names for the rotate dials. x, y, z. Yrot in say the arm is twist but in the leg xrot is twist. So, if you copy the twist for the arm and paste it to the leg, it will not work as expected. You can paste it into a text editor, change the yrot to xrot and then paste it back and it will apply to the twist dial in the leg. Anyhow, that is not really what you need. When you say you have keyed all joints, have you expanded the tree to double check this? I will assume you have, but if not double check by expanding the animation pallet hierarchy as far as it will go and making sure that all dial channels are infact selected. If they are, you should be able to copy that frame indicator (click on it, and copy (ctrl+c) and then open a text editor and paste (ctrl+v) and see if all info is being copied)

Yes, the little box next to twist is selected...and if I copy and paste it into a text file it is there for each and every parameter..."twist". If, however, I paste on an unkeyed frame and then twiddle down to see the lowest level, every joint will have the "twist" parameter unkeyed. It will be the only one missing. Weird, huh?

I just tried this in Poser 5 on the V2 figure using the right thigh twist dial set to 1.0. I then copied the entire figure at frame 1 in the animation pallet, pasted it to frame 2 and checked. Everything applied, including the twist, when I scrolled down. Yes, this is really strange. What figure are you using?

It happens for me on any figure. I've loaded dogs, cats, females, males...whatever. It is good for me to hear it doesn't happen elsewhere -- that makes me think something is simply fundamentally wrong. I'm on a friend's loaner machine trying this out (to see if Poser is worth using), so maybe a reinstall or something is in order. (Although it seems someone else -- bonnyclump, above -- also has the problem, so it'd be good to isolate it.)

But if fundamentally I'm correct and this simply shouldn't happen, it would make me feel a lot better. (Just gotta figure out why it is incorrectly happening.)

Can you confirm that it works fine for you? Key a twist on some joint on frame 1, say an angle of 30....Then on frame 2, key -40 twist to the same limb...then go to frame 1, select the whole character, COPY...go to frame 3 (unkeyed as yet) and select the whole character...PASTE. What is the "twist" on frame 3? (For me it would be unkeyed and thus -40, from frame 2.)

If that works for you...What version of Poser 5 are you running? (Maybe this is a bug that was fixed?) This appears to be 5.0.0.229 installed here.

Thanks in advance.

Poser 5 version 5.0.4.325 (which is the current patch version) Okay, used Judy and V3 this time. Did exactly what you said, copied frame 1 to frame 3, left frame 2 at -40. Frame 3 took the twist okay 30 same as frame 1. Also, for the heck of it pasted frame 1 onto frame 2. Same thing. Old -40 setting was overwritten with new 30 twist setting. Perhaps this was a bug in an earlier version or else something up with your copy.

Shadownet, the difference comes when you paste to another document first, then copy & paste from there back into the Animation Pallet. It does still work as you described if just copying & pasting between frames in the Animation Pallet and not out to another document. rzanerutledge, damned if I ever noticed it before, but youre right. It copies out that way (twist) but will not paste back. However it does seem to be just a name change as Shadownet suggested. It will paste back if you change all the twist to yrot. Just more wacky Poser tricks!

btw, if you select & copy an individual body part from the main composition window instead of the Animation Pallet, you will get "yrot" and not the "Twist" as displayed on the dial.

Heya, all I am seeing different, is if I copy the current Dial and paste it to a TE I will get xrot, yrot, zrot. However, if I copy a keyframe I get twist, bend, sideside. I can stay paste this back from teh TE into Poser, either to a new key frame or to the current dial. Does not matter which I paste, the friendly name version copied from the AP or the internal name version copied from the current Dial. So, this is indeed weird because as far as I can tell, copy and paste works fine for me using the AP to TE or the CD to TE. ?????? Hey, that's a first. I actually found something about P5 that works for me - if not for someone else. Nice change of pace, considering P5 normally does not work right for me - which is why I rarely use it. In fact, I generally have Not Nice things to say about it.

Oops, looks like I crossed posted with Nance on the yrot twist thing

Some frames in your animated character are not all keyed in. When you move any joint in a new frame, it keyed it in for this joint movement only. Any suggestion how to get all joints keyed in a frame?

Nope...you can key all joints by selecting the whole character at the top level of the Animation Editor and hitting the + button above it. My problem, by the way, is solved. It was indeed just a bug that the latest service release fixed. Guess that's what I get for testing with someone's old software install. ;-P Everything works now as expected. (Well, except some clothes aren't deforming right. But that is another issue altogether....) ;-)

GWeb, to key all joints for a figure; open the animation pallet editor; check the radio dot for All Elements; select the figure by clicking on the desired frame for the figure; click on the + sign.

Message edited on: 07/16/2004 12:56

Thank you shadownet. I never paid attention to this radio dot for several years.

rzaneruthledge, glad to hear you got the problem solved. Now you get down to some serious animating. :O)

GWeb, actually, if you do it the way rzanderuthledge said, it works with either button checked. However, if you pick say just the neck element, and click on the box for it to key frame it, and the This Element is selected, only the neck will be keyed. If the All Elements is selected, the entire figure will be keyed. If you are at the top of the tree, then the entire figure will be keyed, regardless of which button is active.

Thanks for the help, everyone. Pointed me in the right direction quicker than I'd have gotten there myself. Best, zane