animate 2 is driving me crazy.... can you help?

davegv

So I am useing Coral 8.1 mermaid with the mermaid animations for coral 8.1.  these animations are not aniblocks when you load them they are written to the timeline. each animation set has one for the body and another for the tail which have to be applied to each body part to work as intended - which they do i can apply them and both the body and tail are animated as they should be. KNOW, what i am trying to do is create a aniblock from this timeline animation. I am useing several guides but this one seems the most helpful: https://renderguide.com/daz3d-how-to-edit-aniblock-sequences/ ;       ...so i bake the animations to the timeline which "combines"  the body and the tail animations to the timeline keys - RIGHT? i assume this because i have coral selected in the timeline and both animations play correctly... I have also tried selecting both the body and the tail and then baking them both to the timeline but i get the same result they appear to be working as intended... SO the problem is when i get to the right click in thy timeline and "create aniblock from studio frames" no matter what i try to do the resulting aniblock only plays the body animation and the tail is static if fact i cannot even seeem to go thru the process and creat a separate aniblock just for the tail animation. i have also tried various parenting diferences with the tail in default it is parented to coral  I Tried to the hip and even tried unparented and i cannot get the timeline animation for the tail written to a aniblock for the life of me .......   I would certainly appreciate any help 

I also tried various ways of trying to add the body animation as 1 track and the tail as a subtrack ... but no results that seem to work  Ideally if any one has these two products and can try to do what i am trying to do perhaps you can enlighten me... THANX

Oh and the reason for the aniblocks i am trying to create is so that i can blend them in a somewhat easy way if i ever can get the created???

Richard Haseltine

Why are you baking to timeline? That is for turning AniBlocks into Timeline animations.

davegv

Richard Haseltine said:

Why are you baking to timeline? That is for turning AniBlocks into Timeline animations.

well i thought i had to to make sure the two animations the body and the tail get combined on the timeline,,, but i just went thru the process without baking them to the time line and i cannot get the tail animation to get written to the aniblock it only includes the body motion.....

Richard Haseltine

That may be a limit of AniMate, I must admit I have never created an AniBlock (and rarely used them). But baking is definitely a from AniBlock to Timeline thing.

3DmentiaNull

Hi davgv, I'll do my best to help. These issues have confused me too. That said, and still learning, I would say that an Aniblock can only animate one asset at a time. Your stated approaches would not combine the keyframes (1. because aniMate would only process the keyframes of one item you have selected. And (2. baking those two ani's to the timeline doesn't combine anything anyway, also the independent keyframes are already on the DS timeline, as Richard said. I don't have those assets you're talking about, but an analogy of what you're trying to do would be : you have a figure that has keyframes on the DS timeline, and a skirt (fitted or just parented to the other figure) that also has keyframes on the timeline. When you "create Aniblock" (even with both items selected, aniMate could only use the keyframes for one item. So you'd have to make an Aniblock for each item and have each on it's OWN track. / Now, RE: difficulty creating Aniblocks from the DS studio keys. I can really relate to that experience! So I've documented different approaches and I pass this on to you and all aniMate users as good practice IMO. (1. In anMmate, move the scrubber and the end point to frame zero. (2. Select only your figure's HIP node in the viewport. (3. Add your animation to the figure. (3. Right click in an unused  part of the aniMate GUI, check "create Aniblock (etc.)" in the next popup window check "direct copy", and click "done".  (4. Grab the scrubber and drag it back to frame zero. (5. Play the created Aniblock. If it's good, rename and save as new. (6. Reality check. This approach fails, maybe 40% of the time! BUT, without doing ANYTHING different, just REPEAT those SAME steps and at some time it WILL WORK! (honest) Pardon the yelling. If it still fails, restart DS. ///// So now just a little more in depth about these choices. Selecting the HIP node of the figure seems crucial, at least most of the time, for aniMate to be able to create an Aniblock, and it makes the DS timeline keyframes visible in the aniMate GUI (white and blue lines) plus auto adjusting the end point. The end point is very important, if the end stopper thingy is past your DS timeline ani, that will create an Aniblock with extra frames with no motion. If the scrubber is positioned before the end, then the created Aniblock won't be complete - of course this gives you the opportunity to trim the track at the end before creating the Aniblock. When you've created the new Aniblock and then in step (4.) drag the scrubber back to frame zero, you see the  white and blue lines (DS timeline keyframes) disappear. That's normal, and allows you to just have the Aniblock there to see if it works. If the white and blue lines are still there you probably haven't created an Aniblock, and pressing play is only playing the DS timeline ani (that can be very confusing). If only the new Aniblock remains and it's no good, just delete it and start over. So that's it. Hope this helps - sure is weird how the exact same procedure works once, doesn't work next time, works again, etc., GoFigure! 

crosswind

Yes, as above mentioned, separately... Here's the video of quick process - https://mega.nz/file/nfYAFZzI#GzVuyOK7H5Vw-ZcDFIUzm-TzGN2MzbBzVy_hRFq9zxs

davegv

@3Dmentianull

@crosswind    THANKYOU to the both of you for helping me not pull anymore hair from my poor scalp.... the video was very useful. I was trying to do this for a unreal project I have since found a nice animated mermaid on the epic store that will work for that project.

but the lesson learned here will be very helpful in future projects as well and a better understanding of how limited animate2 can be?  especially for one with little knoledge of it other than useing aniblocks inside daz..... Thankyou 

crosswind

Good ! You're welcome.

3DmentiaNull

You're very welcome, fellow BIG left eye, OP!