Well, I'm in a pickle with a pose and a timeline and broken tool.

Causam3D

I hesitate to post this question, because at the moment I am supremely and unhealthily angry at Daz Studio.  It's a broken tool, in my opinion, and it's wasted a TON of my time on this project alone.

Anyway, here's the issue.  I saved a pose of a character that I had worked pretty hard on.  To my chagrin, and completely inexplicably (to me, anyway), the pose was saved on a timeline at frame 30.  What?  I wasn't even animating anything.  I had done a DForce simulation with memorized pose turned Off and the option for the Current Frame selected.  I hadn't even played with the timeline at all.  I don't go anywhere near that thing 99% of the time, because that way madness lies.

So, I selected the character (which I've saved in a group that includes her hair and etc, which is how I always work with her) and saved the group as a scene subset, after I had successfully saved the pose and the varioius shapes that I wanted to keep.

I reloaded the original file, deleted the character out of it, and loaded the scene subset of the character I had just saved in exactly the position and with the accoutrement I wanted.  OMFG!  Half the props in the scene, which had nothing at all to do with the character,  were in places that I had never even contemplated putting them, the model was in the pose from the original file (even though I had saved her as a subset, and ONLY her - meaning the hair, clothes, etc and NOTHING else), and it's a big mess. 

I've been fighting with this issue since last night and it's a render for a promotion that I want to get out.  This is costing me money.

How do I save out the pose and shapes to be in the place I saved them without rebuilding the entire ^$$#%$^ scene?

Thanks

Mattymanx

If you have the saved scene with the character and everythign placed as it should be at frame 30, simply reload that and move to frame 30 and render your scene.  Because the scene was accidently made at frame 30, when you move to frames before it the props will move back to their loading point as you get closer to frame 1.  Scene subsets do not record frames to my knowledge.  As for saving a pose, you can save any static pose at its current frame and have it reusable without it needing to be back at the original frame.

 

Causam3D

Mattymanx said:

If you have the saved scene with the character and everythign placed as it should be at frame 30, simply reload that and move to frame 30 and render your scene.  Because the scene was accidently made at frame 30, when you move to frames before it the props will move back to their loading point as you get closer to frame 1.  Scene subsets do not record frames to my knowledge.  As for saving a pose, you can save any static pose at its current frame and have it reusable without it needing to be back at the original frame.

 

I get that, and sorry for having so poorly worded my original problem.  The character is wearing a DForce enabled pant, and she will be in a yoga position on a bed.  I need to be able to start her just slightly above the bed, and float her down so that the pant (a bell bottom) will rest on the mattress rather than poking down through it as part of the simulation.  So I do need in this particular case to run an animation.  Can I add more frames to the timeline?  I've tried doing this in the windows at the lower left corner, but it doesn't want to let me go over 30 frames.  Since I'm already at frame 30, this is a problem.

As to the issue of being at frame 30 in the first place, yes, probably an errant mouse click as I was moving fast put me there.  However, this doesn't address the issue of the pose being unusable, as it will always insist on being at frame 30 when I load it.  I have to rebuild the pose at least, which in my opinion I should not have to do.  There should be a way to save a pose in a given frame as a static asset which I can load on any character.  This is what I mean by "broken tool", although probably it's something I just don't know how to do.

Thanks for the reply.

 

EDIT:

Well, I tried loading a fresh character at frame 0, moving her into place, rebuilt the pose, refitted the DForce garment, floated her above the mattress...  so far so good.  I pop to frame 30  so that I can reposition her onto the mattress.  She changed to a T-Pose, the bed moved 45 degrees to the left, the viewport shifted 45 degrees to the right, my cameras all moved in unpredictable ways, and an entire island sank into the ocean (part of my scene, I'm not joking).

THAT is not due to an errant mouse click.  DAZ is a broken tool.  I'll have to rebuild the entire scene.  Thanks for the reply, though.

Richard Haseltine

Adding frames: you need to adjust the frame count first, then adjsut the play range to use the additional frames.

Causam3D

Ok, I've PARTIALLY solved the problem, to whit:  I salvaged the original pose.  I was able to load it on a fresh copy of the character.

However, the rest of the scene insists on moving my character around, albeit it hasn't sunk any islands or moved any beds.  So far, I've placed her in the floating position (unclothed, I'm trying to remove as many variables as possible like for instance any dforce objects) and added a keyframe at frame 0 in this position.  I popped to frame 30 and she obstinately moved to world center in a t-pose.  Ok, so I moved her back to the position I want her to be in and applied the pose in that position, and added a keyframe.  So, so far, I have her hovering a few inches above the bed in the proper pose at frame 0.  I have her sitting ON the bed in the proper position at frame 30, and applied a keyframe at frame 30.  There are NO other keyframes anywhere on the timeline - only the one at frame 0, and one at frame 30, with the character a few inches below where she began, in the precise pose.  No clothing (meaning no dforce objects on her).  Now, I will report that her hair, which has and has had NO dforce modifier applied, settles into a straight shape on frame 30.  Odd.

When I scrub back and forth, she floats from the initial position to world center and forms a t-pose by frame 15, and floats back to the frame 0 position and pose between frame 15 and frame 30, with the change in her hair.  As I said, there are NO keyframes inserted between frame 0 and frame 30.

Next I'll try removing everything from the character like gens and hair, and see if that behaves any better.  Clearly, there is something "stuck" in the scene that the database is not properly handling.

Film at 11.

EDIT: I meant to say no keyframes inserted between frame 0 and frame 30.  I changed that.

Causam3D

Richard Haseltine said:

Adding frames: you need to adjust the frame count first, then adjsut the play range to use the additional frames.

Thanks Richard, it doesn't allow me to do this in the saved scene (I tried it that way first because that's the way it's done in Blender and Maya and I suppose just about every animation-capable software) BUT I tried it on a fresh new scene with nothing loaded and it worked.  Odd.  At any rate I'm about to rebuild the scene and see if I can isolate where the sticky widget is.

Causam3D

By the way, I just want to say here the Richard Haseltine has been to me and others out here in the weeds of DAZ a real godsend.  He never seems to miss a post and always says something useful.  He doesn't respond to frustration with frustration.  He just contributes. 

Thank you for that, Richard!

Richard Haseltine

heh, that are a great many areas of which I know very little I'm afraid. Fortunately Rob Whisenant sometimes sends the mods a crib sheet if he sees a query on a technical aspect - time permitting.