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How to prevent this when trying to animate?

jimpanse84jimpanse84 Posts: 1
in Daz Studio Discussion
Hi Guys, I'm still getting used to animating things in Daz. Right now I'm using some pre-built animations to wrap my head around the movements and how to do the frame-by-frame poses myself. But here's the problem: Whenever I set up a scene with a character in it, when I use such an Animation on the character, it gets set back to the initial position and takes a pose the pre-built animation was designed for. That itself isn't the problem, but from this point on, everything I do (putting the character to another position, posing it differently etc.) automatically gets built in the animation, so the original pre-built animation gets destroyed and all the stuff like camera movements, posing etc. is in the animation now. So is there any way to prevent this? To preserve the original pre-built animation no matter what I do in the Scene? Maybe Something like locking the animation? Thanks a lot for your time guys

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,848

    I'm not following - if you don't change the figure itself then its animation should remain untouched. Could you give a more specific example of the issue, and of what you want to happen.

  • jimpanse84jimpanse84 Posts: 1
    edited July 2021

    Richard Haseltine said:

    I'm not following - if you don't change the figure itself then its animation should remain untouched. Could you give a more specific example of the issue, and of what you want to happen.

    Hi Richard, thanks for getting back to me. Ok so imagine that I've set up a scene just the way I like it. Environment, a character where I want him, all is good. Now when I apply one of those pre-built animations to the character he gets set back to the default character position in the Scene. That in itself wouldn't be too bad. Repositioning the character isn't much of hassle, BUT: When I now reposition the character, doing some camera angle changes while doing so, these character movements and camera movements are suddenly part of the animation. So when I Hit the Play Button in the animate2 part it plays the movements of the character and the camera as part of the animation. Like it has replaced parts of the original pre-built animation with those movements.

    So I'm wondering if this is normal, and if so, if there's a way to kind of lock the animation part until I've finished rearranging and reposing the character.

    I hope this explains it a little better. Otherwise I could so some Screenshots to make it more visual :)

    Best Regards

    Post edited by jimpanse84 on
  • artxtapartxtap Posts: 158

    good question, no answer?!

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,340

    jimpanse84 said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    I'm not following - if you don't change the figure itself then its animation should remain untouched. Could you give a more specific example of the issue, and of what you want to happen.

    Hi Richard, thanks for getting back to me. Ok so imagine that I've set up a scene just the way I like it. Environment, a character where I want him, all is good. Now when I apply one of those pre-built animations to the character he gets set back to the default character position in the Scene. That in itself wouldn't be too bad. Repositioning the character isn't much of hassle, BUT: When I now reposition the character, doing some camera angle changes while doing so, these character movements and camera movements are suddenly part of the animation. So when I Hit the Play Button in the animate2 part it plays the movements of the character and the camera as part of the animation. Like it has replaced parts of the original pre-built animation with those movements.

    So I'm wondering if this is normal, and if so, if there's a way to kind of lock the animation part until I've finished rearranging and reposing the character.

    I hope this explains it a little better. Otherwise I could so some Screenshots to make it more visual :)

    Best Regards

     It is rather important to switch back to Perspective view when making changes not to affect the camera ;-) Then switch back to the camera [or make a new camera] through which to view the action.

  • artxtapartxtap Posts: 158

    views!

    is there a way to have a Perspective view move back to a camera view. again in the example of this topic you are moving around to pose the Actor; after you are done how does one 'move' the Perspective view back to the camera view OR the other way around.

    and how does one get daz to show an orthographic view? the youtuber 'the wp guru' showing something on one of his many video about daz3d, switched to orthographic view?!

    I don't see that view on the list!

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,340
    edited August 2021

    Hope this helps.

    to have more screens.png
    1173 x 834 - 159K
    select what to 'see' through here.png
    804 x 736 - 137K
    Post edited by Catherine3678ab on
  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,340

    I remember my first attempt at making an animation in D/S -- would make an astronaut seasick lol ...

  • jimpanse84jimpanse84 Posts: 1

    Ok so the thing with the camera getting included in an animation is clear now. Set up a camera in an angle you like, switch to perspective view, do the animation and render in the camera view of your chosing.

    But what's with the character positioning? That isn't affected by the camera. So if I load a character into a scene, pose it the way I like and THEN want to start creating an animation with that said character, the posing of the character (like the x,y,z translating movements etc.) is already part of the animation which of course is kinda not what I want.

    So is there maybe a way to tell DAZ 'ok look, the animation is about to start here at this exact point in time, so clear anything you saved as animation up to now and start fresh' or something like that :-)

  • mobrechaelmobrechael Posts: 35

    Late to the party but let me see if I can help. What I do when setting up an animation is use edit/object/memorize object pose. Example. I have my character in a standing pose on keyframe 30, I will select all of the figures parts (children) and then edit/object/ memorize object pose/restore oject pose. This will keep parts of your character from 'drifting' as I like to call it. Then I go to fram 60 and make my new pose, when I am done with keyframe 60 I will select all the children and do it all over again.....edit/object/memorize object pose/restore object pose. To keep the character from looking like a robot I try to not use certain body parts such as; a shoulder or part of the torso and the middle neck. The reason for this is simple, after you finish the animation you can delete all the keyframes for those parts and and add movement to them on odd keyframes, ergo if all the important keyframes are done on 30, 60, 90 etc....then those other parts that I mentioned I will put small movements in on 40,50,70,80, etc....this way you character has more realistic movements in my opinion. Hope this helps you or others.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,568

    Back to the original issue, try this:

    After loading in the pre-built animation (and it starts the figure from default position), go to the Timeline and select the Hip

     

    Open the hip's hierarchy to Properties > Transforms > Translation

    Select either x or z and then click the little textured button on the bottom of the timeline window to bring up the Graph Editor

     

    It's likely that not all keys for the axis will be visible. One of the icons on the right will "Zoom" to selection, and you'll see all of them.

     

    Select the keys that you want to match to another. Example - if you want to re-oreint the animation to a pose, select all of the x or z axis keys for the animation, and drag them up or down to match the one from the pose.

    Repeat this for the other of the two axis

     

    If the height was also changed, you could also repeat this for the Y axis

     

    Also, if the rotation orientation was changed, you may want to do the same for the Y rotation of the hip as well.

     

    Here's the thing: By grabbing all of the keys and moving them together will keep everything intact as you change the overall position/rotation.

     

    We may also 'smooth' changes that we'd like to make by selecting certain keys and deleting them. Just remember to use the "-" minus sign on the bottom of the timeline instead of the Delete button, or you'll delete the character.

     

    Carrara is much easier, faster and more fun to animate in, but I digress because it doesn't have compatibility with Genesis 3 or newer.

    Carrara has many various tweeners to choose from, and even those are editable. We can select any number of keys and stretch or compress them in time, reverse, repeat, copy and paste them... oscillate, bounce, and the bezier curve (like DS's default TCB) has sliders for adjusting ease/tighten in and out. Even noise tweeners. 

    But enough on that ;)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,568
    edited September 2021

    This also works great for matching up walk cycles that you might bring in that are not aniBlocks. Match the beginning of one cycle's x and z axis to the ending of the previous cycle.

     

    Another methos is to bake the timeline to aniBlock. I think you might need the paid version of aniMate for this - not sure. I bought aniMate 2 when I first started buying stuff from Daz 3d. 

     

    * the aniMate 2 link leads to an article with video tutorials and such

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,568

    A little tip about aniMating in Daz Studio:

     

    I use dForce and VWD Cloth and Hair simulations in my animations, and I also use aniBlocks in aniMate.

     

    I always like to have 30 frames at the beginning of my animations to settle simulations and such. So the first thing I do in aniMate 2 is to right-click at the beginning of the aniMate timeline and "Add Empty Block" of 1 second and make sure that it's all the way to the left of the timeline by trying to drag it left.

     

    Next I hit the FastForward button in aniMate 2 to put the scrubber at the one second mark.

     

    Now I'm free to load in my aniBlocks toi the main charcter, blend in sub-layers, etc.,

     

    IMPORTANT

    Make sure that the first aniBlock after the Empty Block at the beginning has no blend set (it does by default, which is the correct behaior for an aniBLock). This is to make sure that the pose at frame 30 is exactly as it should be. 

    Click the aniBlock. The bottom left will show a little slider with a green gradient. Slide that slider all the way to the left.

    Also use Empty Blocks and perform the above blend removal for sub-layers if you add them.

     

    Once done, click somewhere in the aniMate 2 window and "Bake to Daz Studio Timeline", click Yes to the dialog that pops up.

     

    The very next thing - and this is important!

    In Daz Studio Timeline, right-click in the left window (where your character is) > Collapse All

     

    Next carefully select the third frame through 29 (I'm assuming that we're all using 30 FPS) and click the minus "-" sign to delete them. Make sure to leave one frame past the first one intact (unselected)

    This creates a smooth blend between zero and frame 30, otherwise it's an abrupt change between frame 29 and 30.

    This smooth transition is the area where we can let our simulations settle and are all set to go for the beginning of the animation at frame 30.

     

    Further, I like to use the graph editor tricks I mentioned earlier to alter the results of the aniBlock animation. Sometimes it's just changing the bend of a few joins. Other times I'll be deleting portions of a certain joint or joints and editing in the middle of that spanse by hand, etc.,

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,568

    That all said, if you have a moment to spare, check this workflow out!

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