Anime Studio workflow frustrations...

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funksmaname
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Anime Studio workflow frustrations...

Post by funksmaname »

Hey all,
I'm just working if anyway can give me some insight into what i'm doing wrong, or confirm that it may well be a limitation of the program...

Below are two files - The top one is 'doozey' which is just a run/fall test and the other is 'Samba' which is an animation of a dog strolling...

If you look at the files, you'll see ive taken two approaches to tackle a problem but each comes with their own frustration.

In 'Doozey' I put all of the limbs under a single bone layer... this is great for puppeteering the drawing, except for the fact that once you have moved a few points around the timeline gets extremely cluttered, with no way of knowing which keyframe moves which bone, and so becomes impossible to refine as making changes changes the tweening etc of the rest of the bones...

In 'Samba' i tried to fix this by having lots of bone layers - this gave me the control to have a timeline for each limb, but its made the whole animating process lengthy and confusing, having to switch layers using the mouse constantly... its also made creating actions impossible, because as i go between layers, the actions pallete switches straight back to the mainline... grr :evil:. This way i have to control the parts

The only soltion i think would be to be able to see/move all bones on all nested layers above to control them - the way they hide when you go to a specific layer is frustrating! to go to their individual time lines is essencial for animation control, but the fact you cant tweak arms while working on legs, body while working on arms etc doesnt make sense to me.

This program is amazing... i love it... but the workflow issues make it very frustrating - any advice is appreciated.

Doozey
Samba

The reason i have switch layers with bone layers inside, is so that i can switch between a fully animatable limb (the arm in this case) and an exact copy which has bone constraints (angle constraints in this case)... i didnt find another way to control the bones which have constraints assigned, so when i needed to move the constrained limb, i switch it to free the movement...

i found that nesting switch layers inside bone layers cancels the bones affect on its contents - it just rotates the switch layer, but doesnt deform its contents... so i had to add new bones to control the arms to the switch layer... :?:
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slowtiger
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Post by slowtiger »

I think you complicate matters more than necessary. Why have two versions of exactly the same view of a body part? Switch layers only make sense for stuff which has really different setups so it can't be interpolated in any way.

I don't use bone constraints very much because I know how far any limb can rotate. So I animate everything freely, with the occasional bone locking here or there. If I really need to have very exact positions of body parts, I create keyframes for this right in the beginning of animation and shift those keys to the right outside of the time of my scene, so I can copy & paste them later, if needed.
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funksmaname
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Post by funksmaname »

Thats a good tip actually - thanks... but the contraint bone switching is the least of my problems! :wink:
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heyvern
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Post by heyvern »

Someone came up with a cool trick for bones on switches...

Imagine you have a body part that changes it's shape using a switch. Like a leg that has turned to the side for instance. The bones won't effect one layer in a switch the same way as another if the mesh moves too much.

You can create multiple "sets" of bones that control different layers in a switch using bone offset on frame 0. You don't need multiple bone layers inside the switch.

This works very smoothly when you use switch layer interpolation. the layers blend nicely and then you just animate a different set of bones for the new layer.

It can get confusing with all the bones though.

-vern
Genete
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Post by Genete »

heyvern wrote:Someone came up with a cool trick for bones on switches...

Imagine you have a body part that changes it's shape using a switch. Like a leg that has turned to the side for instance. The bones won't effect one layer in a switch the same way as another if the mesh moves too much.

You can create multiple "sets" of bones that control different layers in a switch using bone offset on frame 0. You don't need multiple bone layers inside the switch.

This works very smoothly when you use switch layer interpolation. the layers blend nicely and then you just animate a different set of bones for the new layer.

It can get confusing with all the bones though.

-vern
Hahaha was me!!

Just place as many skeleton you need in the same switch layer but every skeleton only binds one layer each. You can constraint all the skeletons to a master one (the only one that you move) then you can use interpolation between one pose to other and the shapes would follow the skeleton perfectly. In fact all the layers follows its own skeletons (all they move at the same time but at different positions) at the same time, so switch between one and other will be smooth.

I have to look the post where I said that.
Let me search it.

Meanwhile I hope this tip can help you. This night I'll review your file.
See you.
-G
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Mikdog
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Post by Mikdog »

Man, you've got a crazy setup there. WAY too complicated.

Could be a lot simpler. Managed to animate the legs, couldn't figure out how you set up the arms.

You'll get there, just keep using the software and it'll become clearer.

Here's your dude walking without arms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A-11kV0Luc
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funksmaname
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Post by funksmaname »

lol.
I did something crazy with the arms... in hindsight it was totally pointless - but anyway my problem wasnt with making the walk cycle its with the totally confusing timeline... if i animate the arms on different frames to the legs, and the head on different frames to the arms and legs i quickly end up with keyframes on almost every frame without any idea which is related to which bone so tweaking movement becomes impossible... maybe i just dont understand the way it works.

Thanks heyvern/genete - i dont think i understood what you were saying, i need to see the original post or example setups...

Thanks for all your help so far everyone... :)
Genete
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Post by Genete »

Hi!

Here is the mentioned file:

http://www.darthfurby.com/genete/Other/DE-una-capa.moho

Don't worry about your complexity. I have passed over that in the same way. But once you understand somethings you'll simplify your model and make it much easier.

If you look to the file there are two main layers:

a) "Don Empinado" A group layer with a switch layer "D.E." inside
b) "DE una capa" A bone layer.

If you look them you can realize that I was as much complicated like you. :lol:

Just look to the b) layer
It is a bone layer that holds several switch layers (mainly the limbs). There the switch layers have 3 set of bones. Make click into the left arm ("DE una capa" >> "Brazo_i D" and you will see three set of bones that moves the same. One of them is the master one and the other the slaves. Each child vector layer is binded to only a set of bones. In that way when you switch from one layer to other it interpolates the vector layer and also follow the bones (as well as all they are doing the same movments). So the result is acceptable to animate.

If you have curiosity for the a) version it is more or less the same but with a switch layer above to change between bone layers. Completely crazy to manage.

The b) version is usable but have loose IK form the body to the legs (what is important to make easier the walk cycle). So don't go this way.

If finally you are going to reuse some poses frequently you can use two options switch layers or actions. Remember that actions can also move bones so you can move the skeleton to convert it to other one with an action.
Also remember that switch layers are though to change vectors layers if you want interpolation. If you change other layers there will not be interpolation.

There are not a standard solution for all situations. That was a thing that I learned not much time ago. Choose the best for you animation.

In your examples Dozzey and Samba can be done with one bone layer and several vector layers or simply a single vector layer , and actions for the repetitive vector movements (for example the hand open and closed can be easily done with actions instead of switch layers).
If you want an action to substitute a switch change then just make it one frame length. Look in T&Tech forum to see more info about actions (see the Darthfurby's video tutorial)

Good luck and ask what ever you don't understand.

-G
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heyvern
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Post by heyvern »

I have to agree that all of the bone keys mixed together takes some getting use to.

It can be tricky. One thing I do is "preselect" a bone before doing anything to it. This will highlight all the bone's key frames.

I don't know how far along you are using AS but if click on the time line settings button you will see many types of channels to show in the time line.

For every channel shown for ALL bones (black icon) there is one just for the selected bone (red icon). So... if that is turned on in the time line and you select a bone or group of bones you can see where the keys are. This is not a perfect solution.

It would still be nice to have a more robust time line. I am hoping a future update will improve this. Keep in mind the AS interface as it is has been around for a while without any changes. This is basically the same interface from when AS was Moho and only ONE GUY was working on it. ONE GUY created this fantastic application all by his lonesome!

Now that he has some help from efrontier things should improve eventually.

-vern
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funksmaname
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Post by funksmaname »

Genete - Oh yes! i understand... that is an interesting technique, using switch layer interpolation instead of keyframing every movement... i will have to try and see what its like if i try to interpolate between different layers not only to change their position but also they're pose...?

Also, regarding my setup of lots of vector layers, i guess i'm used to other programs where you have to use lots of layers to control the layer order of things, but you're right, i should maybe use a single vector layer and set up selection groups.

heyvern - Thanks! i didnt know about the red keyframes! that will help somewhat :)... and yes it is a fantastic program which could be even more fantastic! :wink:
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