Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: Seizuring animations?

Render100 opened this issue on Jun 06, 2011 · 3 posts


Render100 posted Mon, 06 June 2011 at 11:05 AM

Hello again everyone,

I usually try to avoid having two ope threads at the same time, but I'll make an exception this time. I'm coming back to poser after a good amount of time, and I'm experiencing an issue with my animations that is strange.

I tried a very simple animation, a 300 frame loop of Michael in a boxing stance. It works fine, but when I tweaked a few things he started to do some strange things, like s[in his torso through his legs and heave back and forth.

I also have similar problems with V4 when I tried to animate her to stand up from a kneeling or sitting position.

At first I thought it was a body part intersecting with another one and causing strange happenings, but I can't find any crosses. Inverse Kinematics is off.

 

Thanks again lol


papasmrfe posted Mon, 06 June 2011 at 6:34 PM

I'm not a pro, but I may have an answer for you. My wording (and technique) may be a bit off, but this should get you started, and I'll try to be clear.

It sounds like your animation spline is over-compensating. (as it will.) Here are two possible places to look for a fix:

First, select the body-part which is misbehaving. (You may need to do this with several - one at a time.)

  1. Open the graph-editor (Window>Graph), and check your curves.

In the top-right corner of the Graph-Editor is a drop-down menu where you can choose from the different movement types for the selected body part. (bend, twist, rotate, etc...)

At the bottom of this window is a slide-bar. You can drag it sideways to scroll through your animation. Or, by grabbing just one edge of this bar, you can stretch it enough to include your entire animation within the graph.

The thin black tick-marks in the graph are your key-frames. Notice how the spline (animation curve) moves up and down beyond the points of the keyframes in an attempt to make everything flow in a smooth curvy line.

You can click anywhere on the spline and drag it up and down to adjust it's amount of compensation - each time you do this, it will create a new key-frame. (*Note: You can NOT drag sideways.)

Or...

  1. Open your key-frame editor (Window>Animation Palette)

On the left side of the Animation Palette are listed the characters (and props) in your scene. By clicking on the small black tirangles next to each, (to their left) you can access it's various body parts. Each body part will also have a triangle next to it which you can open to view it's different movement types. (bend. twist, rotate, etc...)

If you know specifically which key-frames are causing the problems, (key-frames are the light-colored blocks in the palette) you can use the green-curvy-button in the top right corner of this window. (the button on the far right- when you hover your mouse over it, the words 'break spline' should appear under it) to interrupt the animation flow, and restart it again at that same point. (Remember that spline from the Graph Editor?)

If you're not sure which frames are causing the problem(s), you can select all key-frames (click and drag) and then click on the brown-zig-zag button near the top-right corner of the window. (when you hover your mouse over it, the words 'Linear Section' should appear under it.) This will make the selected blocks turn brown and cause your animation go straight from one pose into the next, without trying to make a smooth flow out of the process - in which case, human movements may look a bit jerky and unnatural due to the fact there is no spline compensation being applied.

With practice, you can apply this to only certain key-frames for much more precise control.

To undo (or reverse) this action (if you don't like the results) just select all of the key-frames again (or even just specific ones) and click on the other green-curvy-button (spline section) which is on the left side of the brown one. Or just use Edit>undo.

I hope this was helpful without being too wordy. Good Luck!


Render100 posted Tue, 07 June 2011 at 9:48 AM

I ended up figuring it out, using the keyframes. It was as you said, the model was over compensating for the movement. I remidied this by putting the previous pose as a new key frame 5 frame in front of my animation, so the changes would only happen in those 5 frames, which seemed to do the trick.