Can someone help me with my mistake

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drakkonblade
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 7:09 pm

Can someone help me with my mistake

Post by drakkonblade »

Hello,
Still learning and in basics... I just learned "Actions" So trying to manipulate a drawing i traced... (trying to use most tools ive learn to ;))
Anyways; For some reason after putting some action sequences together i cant seem to play it properly in the timeline...

Issue is for some reason i made the BAT leap from 1-10sec; so also want at the SAME time to play the action feet leap from 1-10sec....
some reasons doesnt want to work as id learned or imagined it to work...

Can someone look at it and share their wisdom... Thank you and i be glad to email it to you..its a very small file.
Thanks,
Ely

**Email as some reason unable to load it here...
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Víctor Paredes
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Re: Can someone help me with my mistake

Post by Víctor Paredes »

Hi, I just erased the other copy of your post. Please, don't do that. Sometimes the forum is very fast, sometimes people needs some time to help you. Writing two posts for the same topic won't help and probably will annoy some people.
About your problem, it's hard to understand without checking the file. You can share it here by using a web storage service as Wetransfer or Dropbox.
You just upload a file and then copy and paste here the link any of this services will give you.
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drakkonblade
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 7:09 pm

Re: Can someone help me with my mistake

Post by drakkonblade »

First!!
Really sorry about that but i was bit too eager to know my mistake or...
Here is LINK http://we.tl/rlWTh8cehi

To explain what i am trying to do or hoped to have been able to do...
1. Wanted to start the animation with the action "Wing Open + leaping feet" to show that the bat is leaping to flight...
2. then to fly....
and at some point...
3. Wing closure + landing feet

Hope that makes sense and look forward to the help. Sorry again for the double post.
Cheers,
Ely
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heyvern
Posts: 7035
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:49 am

Re: Can someone help me with my mistake

Post by heyvern »

I think you should read up on Smart Bones and use them for this project. They use actions just like the ones you have created. You just need to create bones with the same name as the actions to "control" them.

Plain normal actions are sort of limited. They are useful for having some complex animation sequences stored for unlimited use, but can't be easily manipulated.

Smart Bones are actions. The same type of actions you created for your bat. The difference between a "regular" action and a Smart Bone action is that the Smart Bone action can be controlled with a bone. The speed and timing of the movement of the action can be controlled easily with a bone rotation.

Another issue with your actions is that it appears that ALL of the bones are keyed. This means that the leg bones have keys in the wing actions. Any action with keys will "override" the movement keyed in other actions. The trick is to only have bones keyed for the specific action. For example in the wing actions, select all of the leg bones and delete those keys in the action timeline. Delete the wing bone keys in the leg action timeline. This will allow for overlapping or mixing the actions. Basically you only want keys for bones that are moving.

I strongly suggest you look at the documentation for smart bones. They aren't extremely difficult to figure out and considering what you have already created I think you could figure out fairly quickly after reading up on it. You will probably be able to use the actions you already created by simply creating bones with the same name, or creating new bones and renaming your actions.

[EDIT] An additional tip. Your wings open and closed actions could be "combined" or simplified.
Instead of two actions you could simply have one action with keys for closing and opening. Link that to a smart bone and not only can you easily "flap" the bat but by changing the distance between the keys on the time line speed up and slow down the flapping.
drakkonblade
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 7:09 pm

Re: Can someone help me with my mistake

Post by drakkonblade »

First; Thank you for the prompt response.
1. I understand now from what you mentioned what my mistake is..Will retry it...
2. I do plan to study smart bones next but then again i want learn what i can and slowly will figure out which technique is best for what

Overall appreciate the wisdom..time to reset my work and try it again assuming i understood my original mistake.
Thanks again for looking at it!
drakkonblade
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 7:09 pm

Re: Can someone help me with my mistake

Post by drakkonblade »

Redid it based on what i think "heyvern" meant and realized my very amateurish mistake.... I guess a habit from what i learned to place it all on the timeline..either ways redid it properly with bone grouping only those needed for each action...

Thanks again for the help :)
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