Key framing animation

dmetreeus

I have used key framing and animation in general in other programs so I know what my problem is, but I'm not sure the easiest way to fix it.

So lets say im animating a figure.  I move the arm, then move forward 30 frames and move it again and this time i also move the leg.  Now if you watch the animation the arm will behave the way I intended it to but the leg will begin animating from the start rather than from 30 frames in because its basically doing what it's told.  To fix this I could maybe copy the keyframe from the beginning and past it at the 30 frame mark or maybe I could just move the leg then move it right back to create the same position.  But is there an easy way to fill all these possible moving parts with their current poses at each point I change something to keep them from animating from the beginning?

3141592654

Hmmm ... I think I can answer the question up through 4.11 - but things are different in 4.12.  I am assuming you have Keymate. When you move part of a model, the automatically made key has limited information. When you finish a pose, you should go to keymate and press the 'key' button - this is a stronger version which records much more of the pose information. You should also be aware of the button on the right for 'interpolation' since the default is to average the motions and it may soften your poses a little when you string them together.

mavante

dmetreeus said:

To fix this I could maybe copy the keyframe from the beginning and past it at the 30 frame mark or maybe I could just move the leg then move it right back to create the same position.  But is there an easy way to fill all these possible moving parts with their current poses at each point I change something to keep them from animating from the beginning?

The rule to keep in mind is that any item—be it a limb, an eyelid, or a bouncing ball—that you want to animate must have a keyframe marking its start position at the instant in time you want your animated motion to start.

If that means, e.g., a leg needs to be stationary from Frame 0 to Frame 30, and then start motion, then yes, you need to key frame it in its static position at BOTH locations in the timeline, then move to where your motion will finish and keyframe it there. If you don't first put the stationary keyframe at Frame 30, you will experience exactly what you experienced.

Trying to fix what you experienced by copying the leg keyframe from Frame 0 and posting it at Frame 30 seems theoretically that it should work—but it might not give you the results you expect. The reason is that there is already motion in the leg, so it might tend to move away a little from Frame 0 and then move back by Frame 30, then start to move again to your target second pose, at, say, frame 60.

As @3141592654 mentioned, if you do use the copy/paste after-the-fact fix, you can "fix that fix"—the resulting annoying "drift" of the leg out and back from Frame 0 to Frame 30—by changing the interpolation between leg frames 0 and 30 from the default ease-out, ease-in curve to "Constant."  That will make the foot stay stationary from Frame 0 to Frame 30, then "jump" to the exact same position at Frame 30, effectively having it not move at all until you want it to start, which is at Frame 30.

To avoid that complication, keyframe your leg at Frame 0 and again at Frame 30 in the same position. Then go to Frame 60 (in this hypothetical example) and set your target pose.

Richard Haseltine

In DS 4.12.x.x you can also use the Timeline pane to edit the interpolation type.