Removing a single frame from the timeline

barrieM

I used the timeline with a dForce item and now want to use one of the keyframes in a non animated scene. How can I remove the item from the timeline?

Gordig

There are a few different approaches. One way is to export the item as an OBJ and re-import it as a morph for the item. dForce2Morph does this for you, but it can be done manually as well. If you don't already have the scene set up, you can just build it around your current scene; if it is, you can merge the desired scene into your current one.

Gordig

There are a few different approaches. One way is to export the item as an OBJ and re-import it as a morph for the item. dForce2Morph does this for you, but it can be done manually as well. If you don't already have the scene set up, you can just build it around your current scene; if it is, you can merge the desired scene into your current one. If you don't need to animate anything else in the scene, you can simply limit your timeline to the single frame you need.

barrieM

Thank you Gordig for your quick reply. So it is not as simple as dragging a frame into the scene. I have a lot of characters in my scene so It will be easier to do the dForce simulation one frame at a time. 

jbowler

barrieM said:

Thank you Gordig for your quick reply. So it is not as simple as dragging a frame into the scene. I have a lot of characters in my scene so It will be easier to do the dForce simulation one frame at a time. 

A frame is a scene.  You can merge the original scene with the new one; this doesn't lose the simulation.  If you need to co-locate the frames in the two scenes you need to completely key-frame everything.  That means you need to create keys node-hierarchical for all the top level nodes with TRSOAH.  Typically a dForce simulation has keys at a level below the visible frames; change (increase) the frame rate to see them.  Unless you completely key the frames you care about those sub-frame keys will need to keep their relative positions on the timeline otherwise changes to the relative position of keys will, of course, change the values on every frame.

If I understand your desire correctly the trick is to choose a target frame, e.g. frame 100, and simulate each wardrobe item to that frame then merge the scenes, so the final scene is at frame 100.  The you can merge everything together without any excess key-framing.  (The problem with the key-framing is that you end up with scenes which are multi-gigabyte in size).

Easier in my experience is to just construct the whole scene un-dForced, then move everything to frame 100 (simply move [copy/paste] everything TRSOAH from frame 0 to frame 100) then work item-by-item incrementally dForcing.  Freeze the simulation on the item when it is right.  Remember to save the scene to a new file at each step.

jbowler

jbowler said:

Typically a dForce simulation has keys at a level below the visible frames; change (increase) the frame rate to see them.  Unless you completely key the frames you care about those sub-frame keys will need to keep their relative positions on the timeline otherwise changes to the relative position of keys will, of course, change the values on every frame.

In fact I might have been thinking about anilip keys; these can be seen.  I'm not sure dForce ones can be seen; I can't remember successfully moving them (though I may have).  What I normally do  is to allow a roll-in to the first real frame of an animation to give the dForce wearables the time to get to the starting position.

barrieM

Thank you jbowler for all your information and taking time to write it down. This was my first effort at using the timeline after seeing a video that used dForce with the timeline. Your detailed comments are very much appreciated.