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Action point movement quirk

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:01 pm
by MrMiracle77
Ran into this one while testing a set of lip-sync actions yesterday. I make my usual set of poses, and this set has worked well with other characters. The strangest thing happens, though, on a couple of the poses, in this case it happened on the "B M P" mouth pose.

The red action timeline for 'B M P' shows the mouth assuming the correct shape for that pose. When B M P is the first pose used in the full timeline, it works okay. Here's where things get strange: anytime I put a pose before B M P, the B M P pose comes out the wrong shape. For example, if I use the 'U' shape, B M P comes out with strange positions and curves. In fact any given mouth shape that proceeds B M P causes it to form a different shape. It's almost as if some of the points/curves are locked in place between poses.

Things I've tried:

- Erasing the B M P action and re-creating it.

- Checking each sub-layer for irregular point positions and bezel curves.

Things to note:

- Other action positions transition from shape to shape just fine. So going from U to AI has no issues, although I do have a smile pose that makes the same error as B M P.

At this point I'm thinking of just deleting the mouth and starting over.

Re: Action point movement quirk

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 5:29 pm
by synthsin75
Makes sure all points are keyframed in the action. Any not keyframed will allow odd interpolations from previous key.

Re: Action point movement quirk

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 7:17 pm
by MrMiracle77
synthsin75 wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2020 5:29 pm Makes sure all points are keyframed in the action. Any not keyframed will allow odd interpolations from previous key.
As part of my workflow, I always make sure to select all the points on the action keyframe, and their bevels. All of the other mouth actions work fine and transition between each other without issue. M B P and "smile" turn the face into Arnold at the beginning of Total Recall.

Re: Action point movement quirk

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 7:19 pm
by synthsin75
And these aren't controlled by smart bones?

"Bevels"? Is that curvature, beziers, or something else?

Re: Action point movement quirk

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 8:37 pm
by MrMiracle77
synthsin75 wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2020 7:19 pm And these aren't controlled by smart bones?

"Bevels"? Is that curvature, beziers, or something else?
That's correct. There are smartbone controls for the mouth, but only for the movement of the layer, not individual points.

And by bevels, I do mean beziers. I do woodworking too so I mix them up sometimes.

Re: Action point movement quirk

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 10:59 pm
by synthsin75
Without seeing any pictures or file, I'd guess it's the beziers. They don't always interpolate as expected.

Personally, I only use beziers for static art.

Re: Action point movement quirk

Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2020 12:42 am
by MrMiracle77
I think we've got it. So while selecting all the points to lock in the pose of the mouth for the action, I'd been clicking on the outline of the shape. It turns out, I needed to be clicking on the interior of the selection box to get a proper frame out of it.

Re: Action point movement quirk

Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2020 2:16 am
by synthsin75
Good to hear. Once you've moved some points on a frame, the quick way to make sure all points are keyed is to just double-click the all point motion channel keyframe. This does the same as right-click>Add keyframe.