Understood, but I was referring to animating other parameters of something temporarily made invisible, not animating visibility. Regardless of the default setting, having the option of only displaying visible figures, props, etc. in the Animation Palette would be a big improvement.

Only parameters can be hidden unfortunately, and only one at a time. It could take an hour just to hide unwanted parameters for a single figure that has morphs loaded, but animating would be so much easier afterward. Selecting Show Hidden Parameters toggles them all back on globally, but also includes all the parameters hidden by default.

As far as I can tell you can't inadvertently keyframe a user-hidden parameter unless you apply Resample Keyframes, which means if you want to resample a single parameter of an element you can't do it by temporarily hiding the others–you still have to duplicate the figure or prop first, apply the resample, then copy the resampled keyframes back to the relevant parameter of the original figure or prop.

It would be so nice to be able to hide props, lights and cameras. Adding a toggle on the Hierarchy Editor so that anything made invisible there would also be hidden on the Animation Palette would make sense. That should be the default anyway. I can't think of a reason why I'd want to keyframe something when it's invisible.

an0malaus: A simple reverse-in-place function would suffice, even if further editing was needed to preserve spline interpolation. If there are existing keyframes you don't want to overwrite, you could reverse first, copy and paste, then restore the first half by reversing it again, and if you do want to overwrite you could just option-drag then apply the reverse script.

I was just going to ask for advice on the feasibility of writing a script that would enable hiding parameters from the animation palette (because scrolling through hundreds of parameters I'm never going to animate and dealing with the resulting screen lag is such a pain) and discovered that it's already possible. When you hide a parameter dial in Parameter Settings, it's also removed from the Animation Palette. This is not mentioned in the manual, at least not that I could find. It also doesn't mention that you can compress existing keyframe data by changing the Min Limit and Max Limit. So, for example, if you've animated people watching a tennis match, and decide to change the interpolation from linear to spline only to discover the curve is making their necks twist too far, you can change the limits and reduce the neck twist for all the keyframes (but save first because it's not undoable). It makes me wonder how many other things I want to do are already possible.

When there are numerous keyframes for multiple elements, and sometimes more than one figure, it can be tedious and easy to make a mistake, then if you refine the first half you have to revise or manually recreate the reversed half as well, instead of a quick copy/paste/reverse. Rather than a script, I'd prefer this function was built in, like it is in other 3d apps. Even Daz3D can do it.

In your example all the motion is tweened between two poses so there are no intermediate keyframes to be reversed. If there were keyframes on frames 5, 10 and 15, they would need to be copied and positioned in reverse order onto frames 25, 30 and 35. A script, or having a Reverse Selected Frames function built in, would save you the time of manually copying and repositioning each intermediate keyframe.

If your figure is doing pull ups and there are intermediate keyframes to pull up, it would save time to be able to copy, paste and reverse those keyframes to come back down. The more complex the motion, the more useful a Reverse Frames script would be.

A reverse script would be very useful, especially if it could be applied to individual parameters and not just elements and figures, like with Resample Keyframes.

I still have a lot to learn about controlling cameras but have figured out that I never needed to point the Aux Revolving Camera at all, just parent it to a null object (in this case an invisible ball centered on my figure) to make it behave like the main camera revolving around the center of the universe.

Pointing it at the ball made the Dolly X and Y controls behave differently, which I countered by animating the ball itself. This worked the first time, but after changing the length of the animation there was a glitch where the view jumped vertically several pixels (the ball's Y translation, and camera yaw and pitch just had keyframes at the beginning and end). When I stopped the ball from moving the problem went away. Then I tried parenting the camera instead of pointing it, and was able to get the exact same camera move without the glitch.

I don't know if the walk path is an object that can be pointed to but if not you could point to an invisible figure following the walk path. I just tried animating the elevation of an invisible ball my camera is pointed at and that works very nicely combined with the orbiting movement.

ratscloset posted at 9:28AM Sat, 19 October 2019 - #4367603

Place a Ball in the Scene where you want the Camera to rotate around. Have the Camera Point at the Ball. Make the Ball invisible and the Camera will Rotate around that point.

I had tried this before and gave up too soon. This time I got the exact camera move that I need. Thanks! I haven't tried it, but it seems like you could also animate the ball to get some complex camera moves.

an0malaus posted at 9:28AM Sat, 19 October 2019 - #4367606

Poser 11 has grouping objects, which don't render, but are designed to use constraints. My suggestion would be to parent the dancing figure to a grouping object. Apply the figure's BODY translations to the grouping object, which remains on the ground, so will be a stable target platform, rather than moving up and down with the figure's body, as the Posing camera does. Create another grouping object and a revolving camera (don't use the existing scene cameras). Parent the revolving camera to the second grouping object. This camera will always orbit that second grouping obj. Now, create a constraint from the second grouping object to the first one. This will cause the revolving camera's target to smoothly follow the figure's translations, but not bounce up and down.

If you have the figure jumping, you might want to make sure that the Y translations are applied to the hip actor, rather than the BODY/grouping object, so the constrained camera remains stable.

There are some tricky caveats with grouping objects and constraints. If your figure is scaled, or something the grouping object is parented to is scaled, everything parented or constrained to that grouping object will also acquire that scaling, so you sometimes need to compensate for that in the grouping object XYZ scales.

Thanks for the help. I tried it three separate times and couldn't get it to work, maybe because the figure has a body Yrotation. The view changed when I created the constraint, but the new camera (parented to the second group) didn't rotate around the first group and I don't know enough about groups and constraints to figure out where I went wrong. But I was able to get the results I need pointing the camera at a null object, allowing me to orbit around the figure.

Yes, it works on stills as you've described. But in an animation the figure needs to be in the center of the scene to orbit it with the camera, because the camera pivots around the center. When you use the trackball in Orbit Selected Mode to change the view and set a keyframe Poser doesn't record the pivot information of the selected figure, so when you play back the animation you just see a transition between two views, with the camera pivoting around the center of the scene instead of the figure.

Nails60 posted at 3:27PM Fri, 18 October 2019 - #4367578

Have you tried the rotate around selected object button, right hand button below track ball?

Yes, that's the camera move that I need. Position camera, set a keyframe, move ahead on the timeline, rotate camera with the trackball (in Orbit Selected Mode) and then set another keyframe, and you should be able to play it back and see the same rotation, but it only works when the character you are orbiting is in the center of the poser scene.

ratscloset posted at 1:38PM Fri, 18 October 2019 - #4367568

Use Point At and a Dolly Camera or the Aux Camera

Make the Camera the current Actor,

In the Object Menu, select Point At

Select the desired figure.

Now, no matter where you move the Camera or the Figure, it will stay pointed at.

Try using Point At on a Body Part, like a finger to allow some variation in the camera

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried that already and it has the same problem as the Posing Camera. I need the camera to pivot around the character in a smooth circular arch independent of the character's movement. I tried Point At to a null object but that wasn't the solution either.

Thanks for the response. I tried the Dolly and as far as I can tell it works the same as the Main Camera, i.e. it pivots around the center of the universe. The Posing Camera won't do what I need because the character is dancing and it tracks the movement. I just need a smooth rotation partway around the character, like I know I could get if the character was in the center of the scene.

Update: After the render finished I was having the same problem with other files so I deleted the Poser Prefs and the problem went away.