bone keyframes- still confused

[AlanPS]

I'm still having trouble discerning which keyframes represent a single bone's movement. Let's say I'm doing a walk cycle. I have the key frames for the background leg looking good, but the foreground leg's keyframes look bad.

Now when I select different bones I see different keyframes appear or disappear- but no matter which ones I delete the foreground leg still moves in some way.

How do you delete and copy/paste the frames for one bone without deleting/pasting the whole body's keyframe?

Thanks

[slowtiger]

One possible source of strange movements I had quite often:
Let's say I make keyframes for the back leg in frame 1, 6, 12. The "1" position is the foot hitting the ground. Now the front leg must hit the ground on frame 6, naturally. If I don't do anything else, my front leg will move funny in frame 1 to 6. Why? Because I didn't define a key in frame 1, so AS interpolates from frame 0 to frame 6.

[Rasheed]

We even have established a term for that in this forum: Moho flow (or should that be AS flow now?). It is caused by not setting the keys in the "Selected" animation channel properly for all bones, points, curvatures, etc.

For bones animation I suggest you always apply Reset All Bones in frame 1 of every bone layer in your project file as an important first step of manipulating the bones of your character.

[Gnaws]

For bones animation I suggest you always apply Reset All Bones in frame 1 of every bone layer in your project file as an important first step of manipulating the bones of your character.

GREAT tip, Rasheed! This'll save a few hours knowing this ahead of time. Thanks.


-g

[buijon]

i am still only working in frame 0 setting it up. There is no animation. This is all in frame 0 to set up the character on the skeleton with the manipulate bones tool to test it out.


Every parent should move when its child is moved right? Even if its the root?

[Rasheed]

Every parent should move when its child is moved right? Even if its the root?

No, it's the other way around. Every child should move when its parent moves. What you describe is inverse kinematics (IK), which is not the normal behavior of bones. You'll need a special tool (Manipulate bones) to do that.

In frame zero, bones do not change the underlying imagery. This allows you to align the bones with the underlying imagery. Only in frame 1 and higher you will see the effect of the bones tools on the imagery, provided it's inside the bone layer (a direct child layer of the bone layer).

Anyway, for day-to-day animation you would use the Rotate bone, Translate bone, and Scale bone tool, because they are much more precise. IK (Manipulate bones) is used to position the bones roughly, and you then fine tune with Rotate bone, etc.

Here's how I would use the bones tools during animating (in this order):

Manipulate bones - to roughly change the posture of your character.

Rotate bone - to rotate each bone to its final key pose angle. For root bones: to position the character in a forward leaning position (e.g. during walks and runs).

Scale bone - to foreshorten each bone according to its imaginary position in 3D (of course, the bone layer is still in a flat plane, so you are only mimicking three dimensions).

Translate bone - to move the skeleton when applied to the root bone, or to sever parts of the skeleton (e.g. a piece that breaks off).

[AlanPS]

Thanks for the advice. I have been trying to do a walk cycle for a while now and those ghost frames (aka "Moho/AS Flow") always pop in. It has been quite a source of irritation. In 3d it's much worse!

I would have never thought about using the rotate bone tool, I just thought Manipulate Bones was the tool meant for keyframing. Is this a personal preference or a widely accepted practice?

I'm a beginner so I really don't know.

[artfx]

Can you easily key all bones on a given frame, even if you don't move them? I am sure many have encounter the ol' animating a part of the body up until frame 60, and now a new part of the body moves, but it is interpolated from frame 1 to 60 because no key was set to keep it still on all those other frames.

[Rasheed]

Yes, select all bones (Windows/Linux: Ctrl-A, Mac OS X: Command A) and add a key to all (global) animation channels at the frame (right-click on the frame in the channel and select Add keyframe from the pop-up menu). You do not have to add a key to the Selected animation channels, because those are added automatically.

Of course, you'll need to adjust the Timeline settings to show you all animation channels (Bone Angle, Bone Translation, Bone Scale, Bone Lock).

BTW Reset All Bones does not reset the Bone Lock animation channel. So you'll need to do that as well if you want full control over your Bone animation channels.

[heyvern]

You don't have to select all the bones to key all the bones. I rt click/add keyframe for ALL bones on that time line channel... thingy... for all bones without selecting any bones. If you add a key frame on that time line channel it adds a key for all bones. Of course only one channel at a time (rotation, translation etc).

So if I want to key a few bones I KNOW I haven't touched in a while, I will put a key right before and right after that spot using add key frame for all bones.

Does this make sense?

-vern

[artfx]

Yes it does and that ios exactly what I was looking for. I am a pose to pose type animator and tend to key all things on my keyframes.