ready! - mcjShiftAnim - synthesize and modify existing animations

mCasual · December 2013

---------> manual and download
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts3/mcjshiftanim

this script is very much like mcjCycleFilter

but doesn't have the graphical display ( and the associated sluggish response for long play-ranges )

it can modify the animation of any (float) property or morph channel for a given node
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December 14th 2013 8 PM -
- fixed issue with the extremities of looping-time-shifted.
- implemented the ‘‘curPos’’ constant and the ‘‘pos’’ variable

December 13th 2013 - Released

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example :

you found a dance animation but the dancer's feet are below ground level

with mcjShiftAnim select the figure's hip node

specify you want the YTrans parameter to be shifted 4 (centimeters ) up

the script will go through the entire play-range and apply this change

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example, you have a dancing character, the arms are going up and down,

with the shoulders "bend" angle going from angle 20 degrees to 40 degrees

you could use mcjShiftAnim to keep the same movement, but raise the average arms height by

by adding 10 degrees to the bend angles

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the script can also set a joint angle or a morph strength to its current-frame value or a value of your choice

and that's done for each frame of the play-range by the script !

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there is also an expert mode wherein a programmer can type in a formula

example, i select the Bend angle of a shoulder

i type

val = 30 + 30 * sin( 5 * ang + pi / 2 );

and the arm will now gracefully bat at a rate of 5 cycles per play-range
the bend angles will range between 0 and 60 degrees

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mCasual · December 2013

for important animation effects like
- Anticipation
- Follow through and overlapping action
- Secondary action

one often needs to shift a limb animation in time

when building a walk or dance animation cycle we work on looping curves

the last frame of the cycle must remain the same as the last one ... it's a loop

so i added the ability to shift in time an animation curve without destroying the loop

technically that's called a rotation

there's will also be a function to shift without looping

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note that the mcjReTime script is better suited for cases where you want to time shift a whole pose-animation

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts2/mcjretimeanimation

mCasual · December 2013

same animation
i repeated it 5 times using bLooper
i added a sinewave motion to the YTrans of the hip node using the upcoming script
i used mcjAutoLimb and mcjKeepOriend to "re-attach" the feet to the ground

oops actually i replaced the vertical movement instead of adding it tp the original bouncy movement

mCasual · December 2013

here the little shocks in the animation may be due to "aliasing"
because of the low frame rate of 10 fps

the vertical motion was created using the "expert" mode and a function like

val = sin( ang * 1 ) * 12 + cos( ang * 2 ) * 6

mCasual · December 2013

there !

i removed the hard-knock movements from the hip rotations using mcjShiftAnim's simple 3-samples box filter

oops ... error

working on it

well unfortunately i had to use good old mcjCycleFilter to filter/smoothen the animation curves

but i'll fix the issue that caused the problem

looks quite good though now

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figure 2 : the hip animation curves for this dance

( rendered using WebGL ! exported from daz using an upcoming-in-2014 script )
( meaning it's Mac compatible ny the way )

mCasual · December 2013

i'll add a way to load save and reload the custom functions

mCasual · December 2013

hula up

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added load/save function

so if you created a formula like

val = val +  ( cos( ang + pi / 2 )) * 5

you can save it as fx_FlooredSine.txt

and re-use it at a later date

( this formula was used to add some movement to the chest node's Bend channel

and the side-side channel used

val = val +  ( cos( ang  )) * 5

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since this is an additive effect ( val = val + ... ), i did not wipe out the important
chest stabilizing work performed by mcjKeepOrient prior to this