Freeze Frames of EVERY Channel (including Points, etc.)

[JoelMayer]

Hi there

The title basically sais it all already. I'm doing a short sequence that features a lot of point animation on the fly. I really like this approach since it allows you to get close to a traditional look.

However, i didn't find a way of how i can easily freeze a keyframe for all channels in a bone layer including every point (vector layer). Did i miss something?

Thanks for your help!

[Víctor Paredes]

I use the amazing Key tool created by Alexandra Evseeva:
http://mohoscripts.com/script/ae_keytools
With this tool you can copy and paste a frame of an entire character. What I really love about it is that it creates keyframes only for channels already animated, so it keeps the timeline as clean as possible.
(It also has an option to Clean keyframes that removes every idle keyframe in your character/group)

If you use it to Copy and Paste the animation in a single frame, it works as Freezing the entire animation there.

[JoelMayer]

Hi Victor, thanks for your answer. I've installed the script however, i don't quite get how it is supposed to work. So i'd have to create a keyframe on the first frame for every layer manually and would then be able to copy and paste that for the rest of the animation, correct?

Isn't there a "one-click" solution, where i can just create a keyframe for any child layers i want including vectors?

[Víctor Paredes]

It's a two clicks solution: Copy and Paste.
You just select the bone/group containing all your animation, go to the frame you want to freeze, select the tool and press Copy and then Paste.
The tool will automatically create keyframes for every animated channel in that group/bone, including all the layers inside.

[Víctor Paredes]

Officially, you can also use the Copy animation menu, but for this case I recommend you Alexandra's script.

[JoelMayer]

It's a two clicks solution: Copy and Paste.
You just select the bone/group containing all your animation, go to the frame you want to freeze, select the tool and press Copy and then Paste.
The tool will automatically create keyframes for every animated channel in that group/bone, including all the layers inside.

Thank you again Victor

I understand, but what if i don't currently have any keyframes/animation on the channels? Then i would have to go through and first create keys for the vector layers, right?

[Víctor Paredes]

Yes. Or in that case you can use the Copy animation menu and select the channels you want there.

[JoelMayer]

Thanks for the clarification.

If any scriptwriters are reading, it would be amazing to have a tool where i could basically just set a keyframe for selected child-layers on a specific frame, even if there's no animation on it yet.

Or even if i could select the child-layers->vector from the right click menu and then set a keyframe on all selected sub-layers. Atm it seems to only be creating a key on the last selected frame.

Thank you.

[Greenlaw]

I'm going to have to check out the script Victor described--it sounds super useful--but, because I'm usually in a hurry, I just use Freeze or Freeze Selected and then copy/paste those keys. While this can create 'unnecessary' keyframes, I don't normally find this affects Moho's performance enough to worry about it.*

BTW, to make the above easier/faster for me to work, Freeze and Freeze Selected are available as buttons in the Moho Quick Click button panel. I find this quicker than mousing into the menus because I can move the panel closer to where I'm working on the screen.

Hope this helps.

*Note #1: If Moho's interactivity gets super slow and chunky, check that you don't have any unintended negative keyframes in your project with this script by Synthsin75: Find And Delete Negative Keyframes. In my experience, when Moho gets painfully slow or crashy, negative keyframes is often the cause. Fortunately, this error happens rarely. You might also try switching off or on GPU acceleration. There are certain situations where Moho is faster when this feature is on or off.

Note #2: You might also want to hide color bones keyframes, as this can multiply the number of keyframes that appears in the Timeline and probably affects performance. You can hide these channels from the Timeline Channels window as described in the Better Default Settings video. (Scrub to 8:54.)

[pihms]

This sounds like a feature that would be helpful to incorporate in to a future version.

[Hoptoad]

I use the amazing Key tool created by Alexandra Evseeva:
http://mohoscripts.com/script/ae_keytools
With this tool you can copy and paste a frame of an entire character. What I really love about it is that it creates keyframes only for channels already animated, so it keeps the timeline as clean as possible.

Thanks for the tip! I just installed the script, gave it a quick test and it works great.