Sliding effect between Aniblocks

jdavison67

I know the blending setting is supposed to help with this, but even in aniblocks designed to work together the transition between aniblocks is painfully obvious. There is a noticeable shift in every segment change.

Has anyone found a way to fix this?

JD

ReDave

I'm afraid the only way is to add more pleasing keyframes manually. A simple method to save on posing time would be to make a dot in Puppetter for the last pose of the Aniblock then a second dot for the first pose of the second Aniblock,. See if any intermediate poses between the two are good enough. If not try either making a third pose not too different from either, or check in your library if you have one. The power of Puppetter really shines with three poses.

jdavison67

I tried to change the translation of the second block to match the last frame of the first block...which really should work.... but it doesn't save this edit...not sure why.

I tried doing this at the base level.

JD

JimmyC_2009

Do you have the paid for version of the Animate 2 plugin?

If it is the one that comes free with DAZ Studio, I don't think you can Edit and Save AniBlocks with it.

ReDave

It does blend seamlessly for me if I use e.g. Walks/Start(N) and then "Corner Left" (i.e. the figure isn't reset at the origin but carries on walking), but I have AniMate 2 bought. I remember that in the past there used to be right click option and then something about translations, but 1) I can't find it anymore; 2) I don't remember the wording which may not have had translation in it. >_< Unfortunately I'm not sure if it's a general change or if it was a AniMate Lite feature.
In any event, if you bake your aniblocks to Studio Keys (right click and select it) then switch to the standard timeline you can do what you said, by adding a Null for example and translate the Null at the appropriate frame, or by doing what I suggested with Puppetteer.

jdavison67

I have the purchased version...

I see the slide on every transition.

I tried rebuilding the animation using the runway product.

I was watching Dreamlights tutorial as I built my scene...

I was surprised by how pronounced the slide is....

Now I exported my animation as an image sequence to Adobe premiere to create the final MPEG 4.

Not sure if Adobe is contributing to the issue, but I can see it in my previews in DAZ Studio 4.6 Pro

I'm not sure I understand your process you describe for puppeteer....I'm not familiar with that product.

JD

ReDave

After a bit of experimentation it seems the null method is better. Here is an partial example just to illustrate the method:
I pick the aniblocks Walk/Start-(N) and Fighting/kick-(A). There is left foot slide in the transition. I right click anywhere in the AniMate 2 pane outside of the track and select "Bake to Studio Keys". I play the standard Timeline until I find the beginning of the slide (around frame #47). Making surethe play-head is at frame 47, I create a new Null (top menu: Create->New Null) and Translate it in Z until it is at a defined point (say, the malleolus at 132.63). I identified the next keyframe in the slippage, which is arguably on frame #54. With Null 1 (note that this Node MUST stay put and not move) selected and playhead at frame 54, I go to Create->New Null, then expand the "Show Options" button and select "Copy Selected Item". Now I change the Null position to align it with the foot, which is 123.20 in Transl Z, at frame 54. Now parent the figure (Genesis in my case) to the Null 2 and on frame 54 type 132.63, i.e. what you read off the first Null.
Now the foot stays rooted through the first part of the movement, before it starts rotating. I haven't tested it, but I believe the method can also handle rotation so you can add a third null to finish off stitching together the aniblocks.
Puppeteer is included in DS and can be found under Window->Panes(Tabs)->Puppeteer. Unfortunately I've got to run so can't expand on it. You create pose "dots" in Edit mode and then you can record a movement between several poses, but it wouldn't help much in case of foot sliding, unless you go to the trouble of creating say, small rebound steps, but it's more work than the null method.

jdavison67

Ok...I need to play with this a bit, not really understanding all of this....
It seems like a lot of cleanup work...

Is all animation in DAZ Studio this messy?

I thought I would be able to position the starting point of each aniblock, or, at least, have the option of setting an offset for each in the GUI...

This seems like a half baked animation system.

JD

rek_2158272

Did you try the reorient block feature in AniMate? Or do I misunderstand and this is what does not work for you?

tonquedec_6c5c7987e4

Translation jumps between aniblocks used to drive me crazy, then I discovered that by simply doing a "join aniblocks" (shift select each block), and then play through it, the jump would often disappear. Join aniblocks is undo-able, but it's a good idea to save the scene first.
If it works, save it out as a new aniblock or do the bake to keyframes thing and tweak further.