Please will somebody unlock the closely gaurded secrets of performing certain animation tasks in Poser, 9 or Pro 2012?

I'm trying to make my aniimations look more realistic and I simply do not understand the correct way to use IK or character parenting without strange things happening when the anaimation plays.

With character parenting for example, when a dancer lifts his partner overhead and I want them to stay connected so I parent the hand of one to the hip of the other and the action looks natural and accurate, but then I discover that this presents a major problem because when I later un-parent the connection so that I can manipulate the figures into new positions from different frames, the previous lifting sequence has gone crazy and the lifted figure starts flying all over the place. I don't don't know how to achieve this effect and I can't find any decent tutorials that go into this and explain how to use parenting with animation. In fact I am not even sure if you should do it this way?

The same thing goes for using IK. When I start creating an animation and I have IK turned on for the legs for example. I adjust the hip movements etc. so that the character wiill move naturally but remain in the same spot, but then a few frames later I want to move the figure to a new position but I find that it becomes very difficult to move or reposition the joints accurately without truning IK off and then the same problem starts happening as when I tried doing parenting, the figure starts flying all over the place - I am lost at how to achieve this.

Should I use IK at all with animation and if so does it have to stay turned on all the time or what?

Also with Walk Designer, I can't find any decent tutorials that explain how you would INSERT into an animation that you are making a walk for a character to move towards another but only to move a couple or so steps.

Would appreciate the help please!!!

Are you using spline breaks?

Are you aware that parenting is now animatable in Poser 9/Pro 2012. See page 5 of the manual. "Constraint Channels and Constraint Objects"

This tutorial may help, if you have difficulty playing the video try downloading it and trying a different viewer. http://www.philc.net/animation1.php

Hello PhilC

I have been using spline breaks and that certainly improves things but I just haven't understood this really.

I'll look at the links that you have given me.

I was not aware of these features in Poser 9 I hope that they resolve these problems?  I shall check them out thanks.

IMHO  the walk designer as well as IK are 'buggy' to say the least... i use them very spairingly and only in a seperate process to create speciffic movement(s) then i export to BVH and re-import to a scene i am building with no IK... i have noticed improvements in recent releases of poser, but i dont think IK or WD are stable enough to be of much use at the present time for anything other than 'roughing in' an animation, or for making static poses ...have patience and keep practicing , poser can achieve fantastic results but, as with any software,  it takes time to learn the ins and outs of the process... interaction between figures or objects is a hard thing to do in any software..

 

:O)

Hi Jafo,

At first I thought that I was making mistakes with Poser using WD and it was doing some strange things but you are absolutely right there are lots of bugs in this software which need fixing. I am undecided whether to buy Poser 9 as it is?

I appreciate your comments though. Thanks

"Should I use IK at all with animation and if so does it have to stay turned on all the time or what?"

Hi Philc 's answer about constraint channels might help with switching parent dynamically.

But as a long time poser animator myself I can tell you with absolute certainty the poser IK is an ALL or NOTHING proposition!!

Once you use IK anywhere ,in your animation, it can never truly be "shut off"
This is a long standing bug that will likely never get fixed as Smith micro does not care about people animating with poser .

 

 

Cheers

Quote - Please will somebody unlock the closely gaurded secrets of performing certain animation tasks in Poser, 9 or Pro 2012?

...

It is actually rather simple, but it took me a while to figure it out, too; Poser's capability to posing figures is mainly based on two stages:

1 - first all the parameters (the dials on the right hand side of the screen) are evaluated. to shape the figure. Those dials have values and only those values can be used to make keyframes of.

2 - Second, there is a second phase on posing your figure, these are the so-called constraints. These include IK and PointAt, and i believe also the parenting-constraint from Poser2012/9. These modify the pose of your figure, but they do not have any effect on the values in the parameters panel. That means it makes a difference if a knee is bent because of the FK-bend value changed, or because of the IK bends it. When the IK bends the knee, the value in the parameters actually does not change, the bending takes place more "behind the scenes". You cannot animate those hidden parameters, because there are no values to make keyframes of. And more than that, if you happen to have any dependent parameters derived from the numeric input parameters, those dependencies will not get evaluated when using IK or PointAt, because their input value does not change.

So in short, i think of IK and PointAt as more of a posing help than actual being useful for animation (or even for normal posing, because of the dependent-parameters thing). In general you should disable all of them for keyframes, except in some cases, like animating a robot figure with no dependent parameters or just a bunch of independent props.

**"When the IK bends the knee, the value in the parameters actually does not change, the bending takes place more "behind the scenes". You cannot animate those hidden parameters, because there are no values to make keyframes of. And more than that, if you happen to have any dependent parameters derived from the numeric input parameters, those dependencies will not get evaluated when using IK or.....** **In general you should disable all of them for keyframes, except in some cases, like animating a robot figure with no dependent parameters or just a bunch of independent props."**

Thank you sir !
but I would add that this is definitely a shortcoming of posers faked implementation of IK and that a proper IK/FK solver, like the ones found in pro apps would always have keyframable track.

Cheerss

**"When the IK bends the knee, the value in the parameters actually does not change, the bending takes place more "behind the scenes". You cannot animate those hidden parameters, because there are no values to make keyframes of. And more than that, if you happen to have any dependent parameters derived from the numeric input parameters, those dependencies will not get evaluated when using IK or.....** **In general you should disable all of them for keyframes, except in some cases, like animating a robot figure with no dependent parameters or just a bunch of independent props."**

Thank you sir !
but I would add that this is definitely a shortcoming of posers faked implementation of IK and that a proper IK/FK solver, like the ones found in pro apps would always have keyframable track.

Cheerss

Well; Thank you all but after reading through these replies I am definitely none the wiser in getting the results that I want with Poser's Animation and it is fast looking like a lost cause.

I am sure there are some nasty bugs with it and from what others say here, these problems have been with it for some time and are never likely going to be put right.

So my question is this: having already aquired a library of V4 and M4 stuff from DAZ3D and some things here at Renderosity, what other package could I use that will help me to achieve some good animation with these figures and get the results that I can't seem to get with Poser?

"So my question is this: having already aquired a library of V4 and M4 stuff from DAZ3D and some things here at Renderosity, what other package could I use that will help me to achieve some good animation with these figures and get the results that I can't seem to get with Poser?"

Well if you truly need a proper IK/FK solver that can have its influence animated you will need to use anyone of the pro level apps unfortunately you would have re rig V4& M4 in of those other apps to use their animation controls.

Cheers

i think you may be missing the point, i dont think any of us here mean to discourage you from using poser to animate your figures, we only point out that IK and WD are buggy at this point..... figure animation works great if you dont use these features, you just have to do a little more work to acheive what you want,  like posing limbs manually and building animations step by step, it takes a bit longer but it is do-able....with good results...and its easier to use than most high end animation programs... re-rigging these high poly figures for most high-end is a nightmare for even the most experienced users the learning curve is much steeper than learning to  work around the shortcommings in IK and WD in poser IMHO, we are talking weeks for learning to use poser compared to years in high end apps with results that are comparable...

 

JAFO

When using IK in animation, don't just make key frame for that foot or hand, make a full body key frame of that figure. A Full body key frame will give the figure fix pose even you turn off the IK.

I am with hflam, use IK to place the feet or hands, but then select parent body parts, legs for the feet, arms for hands, etc. and SET a keyframe there.  Once IK is turned back off body elements tend to shift a bit too, and slight adjustments are often required.

I tend to avoid adding BODY keyframes so I can later adjust THAT element in the scene file, but it is important to add keyframes to the parent elements, and it's true setting a whole body keyframe would work.

Mostly it takes time and a whole lot of work to create an animated sequence.

Best Wishes,
Rªnce

"I am with hflam, use IK to place the feet or hands, but then select parent body parts, legs for the feet, arms for hands, etc. and SET a keyframe there.  Once IK is turned back off body elements tend to shift a bit too, and slight adjustments are often required."

I really Dont think many of you understand the extent of this problem.

There are times when you need IK to assist in a motion like lowering oneself down by bending the knees but the feet stay "pinned" in place
this easily achieved by lowering or raising the hip on theY axis and setting some key frames.

the problem is later down the timeline,

I want to create a jumping motion where having his feet"pinned" would be a hinderance so I "turn off' IK for the feet.

But some how the IK "refuses" to completely  "let go" and makes the figure basicly unusable for any lower body motion thereafter
this is because poser does not have a real Ik solver but as actually faked as millighost described .

Cheers

Hi Wolf 359

First, thank you and to everyone else who has offered advice to me.

You are absolutely right there are problems with Poser doing animation and all that you say about it (regarding the bugs and weaknesses) I have experienced and my conclusion is that there are some really serious bugs in this software which need to be addressed but Smith Micro really doesn't want to be bothered with it.

How do I know this? because I have asked them about these problems and how to get round them.

When I explained in detail the problems that I was having (as detailed in my questions)  they really didn't do anything to solve problems for me, it was as though they were brushing it aside because there isn't any way around it and guess what? They told me to come here to this forum and to get advice about these issues from the Poser community here.

Whilst I have the greatest respect for all of you people and in comparisson I am an absolute novice it is for sure that many of you do know about these problems too but being knowledgable and experienced animators and long time Poser users you can at least cope with it but sadly for me its a no no and I truly am dissapointed with Smith Micro that they market software like this and put it out with so many bugs and weaknesses for doing animation and don't even have the decency to put it right with updates - shame on them.

I understand that IK is not keyframe-able. For the way I use it, IK is not broken at all. I use IK to keep figure elements in place from one frame to another. I select the elements parents and set keyframes and then, after turning IK off, make any adjustments to the figure I think necessary.

I've never had IK NOT 'let go', so I'm not sure what you mean there.  I AM using Poser 7, so this could be some new bug in the newer versions of the software.

One might use IK during segments of a longer production, and edit those IK on and IK off segments together later in an editor.  I do understand that stringing together IK locked elements and non IK locked elements might not always work too well.  I'm not sure that is what the tool is designed to do.

To the original poster I stress that like anything in Poser there is no quick fix.  The program is a tool that requires understanding and some patients by its user.  I would seek out tutorials and read up on any threads here at Renderosity, and keep practicing and playing around with the software.

Best Wishes, all,

 

Cross posted with Allen ... Have you tried breaking your work into segments?  I would suggest that many artists create their animations in segments.  Using IK in some portions of you animation might work well, but I don't think there is a way to string a number of actions together in a continuous stream without breaking those actions into separate animations.

Another thing is, I can't imagine a tougher task than making two figures interact with each other.  Even for single frame poses it is a challenge.

Fine results can be created with Poser, I've seen a number of impressive works.  Keep learning and playing with the software.  Learn the ins and outs of the keyframe editor and learn the differences between interpolation types.  Learn to use spline breaks.  Create managable segments and consider using a digital video editor.

You don't say how long you have been working on your project, or even how long you've been playing with Poser.  There's so much to the program, I myself have only scratched the surface in animaion, and I've been playing with Poser for years.

Best wishes, and I hope you stick with it.

Hi Rance01

I appreciate your encouragement and truly I don't want to wrap up using Poser but you see there are problems that I can't resolve. I keep being told to learn more about it and read tutorials and thats the point, there are few tutorials that truly deal with Poser Animation in depth and secondly, with these bugs in the software nobody anywhere is going to be able explain the depths of it when it goes haywire no matter what you do.

I am using Poser 9 Demo version. I have been using Poser for about a year and a half and I want to do animation with it.

As I said I am a novice with it but it seems to me that you should be able to Pose fugures with IK turned on and get the pose right, kneeling, crouching etc. without having a figure fly all over the place when you turn the IK off. It simply doesn't work properly, why do they even bother making IK available with animation? Whether you use keyframes on the body or hip or whatever it still doesn't resolve anything.

My guess is that these problems run deep inside Poser and putting it right would need a complete rewrite of the entire animation side. I also think that there are so few tutorials out there for animation because they have all encountered these issues and the bits that work is what they tell you about and that's not much.

I'm all for trying hard to get my ballet dancer characters to dance together and look right even if it takes a few years but the problem is compounded with bad software and is likely to never to be achieved.

Somebody has suggested that I give DAZ Studio a try but I know nothing about that package or if it also has bugs!

I absolutely respect the people here who do make amazing animation with these tools hats off to all of you.

I suggest using segments to create any kind of epic animation. A good trick is when you’ve finished some action, he picks her up and sets her back down, as soon as she is safely back on the floor save the animation. Advance to the last frame and use the Edit menu, Memorize all. Step back to frame 1 and use Edit menu, Restore all. Delete the rest of the animation. The easiest way to do this is re-time your animation from Frame 1 of 1. Now, IMMEDIATELY do a File, Save As, and give this new segment a unique name. Continue animating from here.

Each time you have a successful segment or action, save the file and begin a new segment. Each time you must use IK to achieve an action, use Parent to attach a child, each time you wish to detach a child FROM a parent, begin a new segment. Years ago I worked on what I consider an epic animation and generated no less than twenty one Poser files.

You will be glad for the segmented approach when it comes to rendering too. I don’t think you want to wait hours or even days (weeks?) to render out an entire masterpiece only to find some small error. I used to key frame by day and render at night. Post here with questions and someone will know or suggest an answer. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned from this site.

I use Poser 7 (from 6, 5, 4 ....) and so I am not sure if some new glitch was worked into Poser 9 that I don't know about.  Maybe someone will answer as to the way IK has changed along with the upgraded versions.

there are many members here who genuinely want to help in any way possible, if you run into speciffic problems and need assistance please dont hesitate to post questions, generalised questions are hard to understand and its a real guessing game to get to the root of the issue,   hang in there ...

 

:O)

Rance01 and Jafo

You guys are an inspiration and your encouragement is amazing. The people that have answered my call have been supportive and helpful just as you say they would, this is indeed a wonderful community of artists.

I will try your suggestions Rance01. I wont give in... Not with people like you in the world. Thank you all.

For the Parent part, I sugguess you use a invisible box as a null object and parent the hip and the hand to that box. When you need movement with both hip and hand, key frame that box.