Bug Check: SmartBone Display Issue

[Greenlaw]

Hi,

I think I'm getting fairly competent with the tools in Anime Studio Pro but occasionally I will run into some puzzling behavior. Here's a new one (for me):

I'm trying to rig one of my characters with SmartBones, and when I set up the arms for it, the artwork will 'disappear'. When I touch the rotate bone tool, the arms will reappear, so this seems to be a display issue. I don't know if this has to do with my video card or if it's a known software error. Is anybody else having this issue?

FYI, I'm running Anime Studio on an HP tm2 tablet PC with Win 7 x64 right now which has an ATI chipset, but I also run the software on a regular workstation (also WIn 7 x64) with and Nvidia GTX 460 card, so I'll check on that system when I get the chance.

I'm also having issues with the SmartBone action unexpectedly affecting other layers (making them disappear or move.) I tried killing all keyframes in the document and each individual layer/item, but this still happens when I create a new SmartBone action.

I'm beginning to suspect the artwork itself is somehow corrupted because I don't seem to have these problems with newly created elements in a clean scene, only this particular character. I'm at a point where I would like to save each vector layer for this character as a pure vector graphic with no possibility of other data attached (i.e., no keyframes, etc.) and import each layer as a clean vector graphic into a clean scene file. Does anybody have a suggestion for doing this easily?

Thanks in advance for any info for either or both issues.

G.

[Greenlaw]

BTW, this forum is fantastic. I've learned so much from reading the posts here.

[Greenlaw]

Regarding saving 'clean' ASP elements, I wound up saving each layer to the Library as a Prop and then importing the items to a new scene from the Library. I guess that should work shouldn't it? Will continue to post notes on my progress with this issue.

G.

[Greenlaw]

I wondered if it was the ATI chipset in the tablet PC that caused the apparent redraw issue, so I switched the the built-in Intel Graphics chipset, but the redraw issue persists. Very strange. Will try this at home tonight on the workstation with the Nvidia card.

Regarding my other SmartBone issue, transferring the art layers to the clean scene via the library seems to be working so far. I now suspect something got hosed in the original scene file.

G.

[Greenlaw]

Hmm. Apparently old Actions/SmartBone data can get transferred through Props because some of it somehow snuck into my 'clean' scene. I tried clearing the unwanted data in the new scene though and at least this time it really seems to be removed.

Ugh. Hope this one was just a random issue--hate to run into it again.

G.

[Greenlaw]

Finally got to try this scene on my workstation, which has an Nvidia card instead of the ATI chipset found in my tablet PC. The display error is about the same--some of the vector images will 'disappear' when creating a SmartBone action. Like with the ATI, however, if I rotate the bone, the display will refresh. My feeling now is that this is a general display bug in 9.5 not related to the graphics card. Oh, well, at least there's a workaround to reset the display.

Sometimes I get a weird display of the element even after refreshing, where the path will be drawn with straight line segments instead of curves. But went I jump out of the SmartBone and switch back to Mainline, the path 'reverts' to its normal curved lines. Very strange.

I wonder if this has anything to do with how I created this layer's graphic. This layer contains both of the character's arms, and when I made it I drew one arm and then flipped a copy of the arm for the other one. Could this technique be confusing ASP? The thought crossed my mind In an earlier version of the scene when initiating a SmartBone would 'unflip' the flipped arm and position it exactly on top of the other arm. I think I'll avoid doing this for now, at least in this build of the software.

Anyway, just wondering if anybody else is having a similar experience.

G.

[Greenlaw]

Still don't know about the weird display error but I think I found an explanation for some of the other weirdness I was running into--probably mostly user error. I'm finding that some elements have old SmartBone and other Action data attached. Stripping them out seems to help when creating new SmartBone actions in this scene. D'oh!

Just wondering, is there an easy way to remove all Actions/SmartBone data from a scene like you can with keyframes? Thanks in advance for any info.

Whew! At least I feel like I can move on now.

G.