How do I force delete Bone target keyframes?

[strider2000]

Somehow, I don't know how, I created a bone target keyframe on one of my characters, but can't delete it.



I've tried clear all animation from the document and checking every bone's target (all set to none).

I am trying to use target bones for the feet. When I check every bone for the target, they're all set to none and I don't see a selected bone keyframe. However, if I choose
any bone (except the ones I want to be target bones) and choose either target bone I do see the selected bone keyframe, but still can't delete it.



Does anyone know the kinds of things that can cause that, and more importantly, how do I remove it

Any ideas are appreciated

[synthsin75]

Try coping the keyframe to frame zero and then deleting it.

[strider2000]

Wow. That worked (as I expected, your advice typically does

Thanks. I never would have thought of that.

[Greenlaw]

Wes, any idea what causes that error?

Copying to zero usually works for me too, but every now then I get a really stubborn keyframe. When that happens, I try a bunch of stuff like copy zero to the keyframe and then copy back to zero and then delete, or make a new keyframe and drag it over the bad one and then delete, etc.

Fortunately, this problem happens rarely but I've never understood what causes it.

[synthsin75]

Glad I could help, Strider.

Wes, any idea what causes that error?

This happens due to "orphaned keyframes", where the animation channel is not really registered as keyframed with a value on frame zero. Since you can't really delete a frame zero keyframe, if frame zero hasn't registered a key value, the first key seems to be considered the undeletable "anchor" key. But no idea what specific action causes this. It may be a combination of messing with frame zero in an action, hitting undo/redo (maybe multiple times) at an odd moment, or something completely different.

Copying to zero usually works for me too, but every now then I get a really stubborn keyframe. When that happens, I try a bunch of stuff like copy zero to the keyframe and then copy back to zero and then delete, or make a new keyframe and drag it over the bad one and then delete, etc.

Fortunately, this problem happens rarely but I've never understood what causes it.

Yeah, it seems fairly rare here too. Seems like I have seen where pasting it to frame zero doesn't work occasionally. If so, selecting and pasting all the keys above frame zero on the channel to frame zero seems to free it up again. I haven't found one that I haven't been able to delete, one way or another.

[Greenlaw]

As always, thanks for your insight!

[strider2000]

Wes' reply solved my issue, and gave me some ideas of what to look. What caused my scenario is just creating a bone on a non-zero frame. It actually had nothing to do with targeting. It was just coincidental that I was trying to create a target bone and saw the bone target key frame.

I just created a video to show the issue, in case it helps others.



My suspicion is that there are so many operations to cover in Moho, that some code paths are just missing the proper code to create the 0 frame registration keyframe. That results in what Wes refers to as the "orphaned keyframes".

[synthsin75]

Nice example of creating the problem. There are actually several ways to fix it.

1. As we've already done, copy that key to frame zero then delete it.
2. Right-click the frame zero key and select Add Keyframe, which keys everything on the All channel, so the other key is no longer orphaned.
3. Make the trouble bone target another on frame zero, which can be immediately set to None again. The problem here would be knowing which bone had the orphaned key, so this option might take targeting all bones to a new bone, which isn't ideal if you have targets you want to keep. So the first two options would be best.

I'm guessing that when targets were added, some of the error checking got missed.