Animation frustration when using Aniblocks.

almostfm@comcast.net

I'm getting really frustrated trying to use Aniblocks, and I realize there's a good chance that it's because I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm trying a pretty simple animation-a G8F character walks through an open doorway, turns 90 degrees, and goes down a hall.

I set up the blocks, and then when I bake to the timeline, the starting position of my character moves if I've rotated either the body or the hip so she's facing the right direction at the start of the animation.

What's more, if I move the character back to the correct starting position, adding blocks to the end does nothing. When you bake the frames, it says to "reenable" the animate tracks to add more blocks, but it doesn't seem to say anywhere exactly how to do that.

Is the solution just to not bake to the timeline at all?  Or is there something I'm doing wrong?

thanks,

Scott

Ivy

 

 First question? , Are you working with animate2? or the animate-timeline that came as part of the daz studio download. because that is just the animate-lite version and you need animate2 to edit & layer aniblocks. if you do have animate 2 timeline then,   Once you baked aniblocks or any other animated preset into the daz timeline or animate2 timeline its impossiable to clear the animation unless you delete the character and start over.

If your using conforming hair props and clothing there is really no need to bake aniblocks into the timeline.  deforce hair and clothing how ever requires the aniblock to bake into the daz timeline in order to work with your character.

If your joining aniblocks together like a walk- cycle join to a right-turn-45-degree , then its best to leave the characters the original size or scale as they come loaded, or other wise for some strange reason when join aniblocks together and you try to scale the character up or down. it will cause the motion in the anblock to jump the greater the character scale change the worst the jump can be.  There is a fix/work wround if you want to start moving joint axis around with the joint editor every time a joined aniblock make a jump. so it easier to leave the characters as orginal scale to avoid that issue as much as possiable.

My best solution is to make your animation you need for the character your working on, out of the aniblocks or motion presets your using and once you have the motion the way you like & want it then right click the animate2 timeline & bake the animations into the timeline then right click again and save the baked animation as a Aniblock and create a aniblock out of the bake animation this way you can save the custom aniblock you just made & then be able to edit the motion in the saved aniblock with out it jumping around.  But once you bake the animation into the timeline. its preminet & you will need to start over with a new character so its a good idea to make a back up copy of your characters & scene when your working with animation.

I hope that helps ... Good Luck.

almostfm@comcast.net

Irv,

Thank you so much-that clears up quite a bit, and I've now got an idea of how to do my workflow on more complex things.  Right now I'm not using dforce clothing or hair, so I can tackle that another day. Yes, I'm using animate 2, so at least I have that right  Now, if I could just figure out why the starting position changes if I rotate the character in frame ).

And I'm thinking if there's no way to go back to the aniblocks beside deleting the character and starting over, the message about reenabling the animate tracks should probably go away-because I spent close to a week trying to determine why I couldn't do it.

Thanks again